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Foster^ TrezlcM- 


PRACTICAL POKER 


coL^' 


ci*C 






WORKS BY R. F. FOSTER 


Bridge Manual.$1.25 

Bridge Maxims.1.00 

Bridge Score Cards, No. 2 . . . .25 

Bridge Score Sheets, No. 1 . . . .25 

Call-Ace Euchre.75 

Chess (Pocket Library) ..... .50 

Cinch (Pocket Library).50 

Common Sense Leads.25 

Dice, AND Dominoes Tocket Library) .50 

Poker (Pocket Library).50 

Practical Poker.1.50 

Whist Manual.1.25 














CONTENTS 


PAGE 

.TRODUCTION.xi 

CSTORICAL. I 

VWS.19 

Jack-Pot Laws.30 

TSPUTED PjLES .35 

'ESCRIPTION OF THE GAME.6l 

Poker Hands. 71 

Jack-Pots .81 

Varieties of Poker.90 

Coming In.98 

Opening Jack-Pots .no 

Coming into Jack-Pots.115 

Raising the Ante.124 

Drawing to Improve.130 

Betting.143 

Watching the Draw.153 

Calling and Raising.156 

Mannerisms and Talk.166 

Position Play.171 

Bluffing .’.181 

Limits.191 

Poker Calculations.195 

Odds Against Improving .209 

Luck and Superstition.222 

Technical Terms.228 

Bibliography.238 

Chronology .242 

General Index.244 









































INTRODUCTION 














INTRODUCTION 


Poker, although it has been prominently before 
the public for forty years, and is probably more 
widely known and played than any other game of 
cards, has, unfortunately, no well-established set 
of laws, simply because there are no clubs of ac¬ 
knowledged standing that will undertake to father 
such a code. This is chiefly on account of the old 
prejudice against poker as a game of chance, and 
the difficulty of securing its proper recognition for 
what it is—a game of skill. 

Many writers on the game have attempted to 

f pply this deficiency, and there are to-day about 
irty different versions of the Laws of Poker, 
any of these were framed to meet the demands of 
a game which is no longer played, while others are 
; designed to embody the individual ideas of their 
I authors, who too frequently forget that there are 

J rertain fundamental principles, inherent in the 
game itself, which neither they nor anyone else 


XI 







xii 


INTRODUCTION 


can change, no matter how easy it may be to point 
out the possibility of improvement. 

All these codes I have carefully collected, in¬ 
dexed, and compared, getting together under sep¬ 
arate heads the various decisions upon different 
points, and noting the time and circumstances 
under which new laws were introduced to meet 
the gradual changes in the development of the 
game. 

But a mere book-knowledge of printed laws is 
not enough. Of my practical experience at the 
Poker table I will not speak, except to say that I 
learnt in a hard school. My most valuable ex¬ 
perience is an accumulation of the experience of 
others. 

Having been called upon, during the past ten 
years, to deal with an average of eighty letters a 
week relating to Poker disputes alone, I have prob¬ 
ably had exceptional facilities for sifting out and 
analysing Poker Laws. Card-players of all classes 
and in all countries have submitted an enormous 
number and variety of examples from actual play, 
showing how certain rules work out in practice, 
and how some of them will not work. If there is 
any possible quibble or misunderstanding that has 





HISTORICAL 


It is curious that such a popular game as Poker 
should have had so little attention paid to its origin 
or the history of its development. Among the 
forty different authors who have written books 
dev'Cted exclusively tu the game, only one or two 
goffer any explanation of its derivation, and their 
i efforts are merely guess-work unsupported by the 
/ slightest historical or circumstantial evidence. 
j Only one writer attempts to account for the name 
i Poker, which he fancies might have been derived 
( from the old English game of Post-and-Pair. 

Poker is universally regarded as an American 
game, but is frequently spoken of as of English 
origin—a direct descendant of the game of Brag. 
If this were the true explanation of its origin, the 
Americans would have derived Poker from the 
English, it would have been first played with an 
English pack of fifty-two cards (like Brag), it 
would have had an English name, and it would 
probably have first appeared in that part of Amer¬ 
ica to which the English emigrated. Nothing of 
the kind is the case. 

B 




2 


PRACTICAL POKER 


A series of investigations undertaken by the 
New York Sun, with a view to discovering the 
earliest date at which Poker had been known in 
America, and the manner in which it was first 
played, elicited a large number of letters from old 
card-players in various parts of the States, which 
proved pretty conclusively that the game either 
came to America by way of New Orleans, which 
was the capital of the French Colony of Louisiana, 
or that it originated in that city, very early in the 
nineteenth century. 

An exhaustive search through the literature of 
card-playing has brought out a number of closely 
co-related facts, which point to Poker as a game 
of Persian origin, with a name borrowed from a 
French game, Poker being nothing but an English 
mispronunciation of the French word ‘/Poque.? 

The combinations of cards which 4 re of^^hie 
in Poker are to be found in a great many games. 
They can be traced back to the ancient French 
game of Gilet, and even to the Italian game of 
Primero, from which Gilet was probably derived. 
In the time of Charles IX. we find Gilet changed 
into Brelan, a game which is now extinct, although 
the technical terms used in it are still extant in all 
French games of cards. From Brelan were de¬ 
rived the French games of Bouillotte and Ambigu 
—the latter described as far back as 1654. From 
these we get the English games of Post-and-Pair 
and Brag. The first mention we find of Post-and- 



FOSTER ON POKER 


3 


Pair is in “Cotton’s Compleat Gamester,” 1674; 
but Brag is not mentioned until the 1721 edition. 
An earlier reference to Brag is in the “Memoirs 
of the Lives, Intrigues, and Comical Adventures 
of the Most Famous Gamesters and Celebrated 
Sharpers,” by Theophilus Lucas (London, 1714). 
In this there is a graphic description of the art 
of bluffing, and mention is made of one Patrick 
Hurley, a very good player. 

Brag has in it the peculiarity of attaching certain 
arbitrary values to three particular cards—the ace 
and nine of diamonds and the jack of clubs. This 
is quite foreign to the game of Poker; and Mistigris, 
which adopts the idea, using the joker, was first 
played in 1875. Three-stake Brag, which came 
later, is evidently an imitation of the French game 
of Poque and its cousin the German game of 
Pochen, as it introduces the counting for the point, 
and the showing of certain cards for the parts of the 
pool before betting on the pairs and triplets in the 
hands themselves. 

Brelan, Bouillotte, and Brag were played with 
three cards only; Ambigu with four. In Bouillotte, 
however, there was a turn-up card which might 
be combined with the three cards in the hand of 
the player to increase the value of his combination, 
three queens in hand and one turned up being 
reckoned as four of a kind. Bouillotte was played 
by four persons with a pack of twenty cards only, 
the ace, king, queen, nine, eight of each suit being 






4 


PRACTICAL POKER 


retained. Ambigu was played with a pack of forty 
cards, the king, queen, jack of each suit being 
thrown out. Brag was always played with the 
full pack of fifty-two cards. 

In all these games the combinations of value 
were very various, beginning with the point, which 
was the greatest number of pips on two or more 
cards of the same suit. Then came sequences, 
triplets, flushes, and fours. A single pair had no 
value in any of the French games; and any such 
thing as a double combination, two pairs, or a full 
hand, was impossible. 

It is very evident that Poker was not derived 
from any of this group, because it was always 
played with five cards; pairs always had a value, 
sequences had not; there was no draw, and no 
such thing as counting for the point; while double 
combinations were always a characteristic. Haa 
Poker been derived, as some suggest, from a fur¬ 
ther development of Ambigu—adding another 
card to the player’s hand, just as Ambigu added 
one to the three which were proper to Brelan and 
Bouillotte—it would certainly have retained the 
very interesting feature of the draw to improve the 
hand, which distinguished Ambigu from other 
games of this group. Poker was played in the 
States for at least sixty years before such a thing 
as the draw was even suggested. 

The only game which Poker resembles in ail 
its essential features is the ancient Persian game 




FOSTER ON POKER 


5 


of ^ j nds. The old Persian pack consists of twenty 
cards only, divided into four suits of five cards 
each, which are known as lions, kings, ladies, sol¬ 
diers, and dancing girls. The pictures of these 
characters take the place of our ace, king, queen, 
jack, ten. These packs of cards are called varak 
i as, varak i asanas, or simply ds, from the game 
ds or dsands, which is always played with them. 
The name ganjt/eh is applied to the modern Euro¬ 
pean cards, the word being probably derived from 
the Chinese, and meaning “paper cards.” 

In ^5 nds, five cards are dealt to each player, 
and the rank of the hands is as follows:—Four 
of a kind; three of a kind and a pair; three of a 
kind; two pairs; one pair. 

There was no draw to improve the hand, and 
it is worthy of note that sequences were not reck¬ 
oned. The sequence or straight was not intro¬ 
duced to Poker until about 1870, and seems to 
have come in at the same time as the draw. 

In this Persian game we have all the character¬ 
istics that would naturally present themselves in 
the parent of the Poker family—the twenty-card 
pack, five cards to each player; the recognition 
of single pairs and of double combinations, such 
as full hands and two pairs; and the absence of 
the draw to improve the original hand. The bet¬ 
ting arrangements were precisely similar to those 
that obtained in straight Poker, and the bluff was 
very common. 







6 


PRACTICAL POKER 


From what we can gather from contemporane¬ 
ous literature, Poker was introduced to America 
by way of New Orleans, either during or shortly 
after the time of the French Revolution. It is 
remarkable that Bouillotte was all the rage in, 
France about this time, but chiefly among the 
fashionable classes. Among the common people 
there was another game, something like it, and 
also of ancient lineage, called Poque, which was 
derived from the older game of Hoc. 

This game of Poque is very fully described in 
the “Academie Universelle des Jeux” (edition of 
1718), an authoritative work on all games, which 
was published at the Palace, Paris, by Theo¬ 
dore Legras. Poque is still played in Germany 
under the name of Pochen, and the apparatus 
for it can be found in any German stationer’s shop. 
Its peculiarity is, that after the cards have been 
dealt and the payments for the various cards 
held have been taken out of the pools, just as in 
three-stake Brag, the players propose to bet on 
the pairs or triplets they hold, just as we now 
bet on Poker hands. In the French descriptions 
of the game we are told that the betting was begun 
by some player naming the amount he was willing 
to risk by saying, “ Je poque d’un jeton,” or what¬ 
ever the number of chips might be. In Germany 
one hears exactly the same expression to-day, 
“Ich poche eins,” or whatever number the bettor 
pleases, and the answer from the other players 
is always, “Ich poche mit.” 




FOSTER ON POKER 


7 


In the English translations of the ‘‘Academie 
des Jeux,’^ and in all the English descriptions of 
the game of Poque, we find the players are in¬ 
structed to say in English, “I poque for so much,” 
and the opposing players are to respond, ‘‘I poque 
against you.” Show this to any ordinary English- 
speaking person not acquainted with French, and 
he would undoubtedly read it as if the word 
“poque” were divided into two syllables, and 
would pronounce it “po-que.” In German, the 
word “poche” is as near “poker” as the vowel 
sound will admit. 

It would seem probable that any Englishman 
who had played Poque, and almost certain that 
any resident of New Orleans of French birth or 
extraction already familiar with Poque, upon see¬ 
ing “As nas” played for the first time, or on hav¬ 
ing the game described to him, would use the 
expression “Je poque,” and that the English- 
speaking people who carried the game up the 
river from New Orleans would say “poke” or 
“poke-ah.” The curious and difficult foreign 
name of “As nas” would soon be dropped in 
favor of the simpler “po-que,” which would easily 
be spelt “poker.” We have endless examples of 
games that have lost their original names, and 
aken on names derived from some feature of the 
'olay, like Pitch, Set-back, Cinch, and others. 
jSo much for the probable derivation of the 
lime, and the main features of the game itself. 
Is gradual growth and development can be easily 







8 


PRACTICAL POKER 


traced in the literature of cards, although it did 
not appear in any text-books until it had worked 
its way to the Eastern States. In its early days it 
was a river game, peculiar to towns on the Ohio 
and Mississippi. After the railway came, it trav¬ 
elled with it to the sea-coast towns in the East, 
and wended its way with the mule-wagons on 
their journeys to the West. 

The earliest mention that we have of Poker is 
in a work entitled “An Exposure of the Arts and 
Miseries of Gambling,” published by G. B. Zieber, 
Philadelphia, in 1843. The author of this remark¬ 
able book, and of many similar ones, was a re¬ 
formed gambler, who in 1888 entered the Soldiers’ 
Home at Dayton, Ohio. He was then eighty 
years of age, and had served in the 35th Indiana, 
Company F. The book was afterwards published 
by T. P. Peterson, Philadelphia, in 1857; 
same firm published, in 1858, another work by the 
same author, “The Reformed Gambler; or, The 
History of the Later Years of Jonathan H. Green.” 

Green tells us, in his preface, that he wrote 
“Gambling Exposed” in 1843; and in the book 
itself he refers to several Poker incidents as having 
happened “a few years ago,” which must have 
meant some time in the thirties. The earliest 
positive date -that can be fixed upon in any of 
Green’s works for a particular game of Poker is 
June, 1834. He relates, in the “Reformed Gam- 
bier” (page 140), an incident that occurred at tlrni 




FOSTER ON POKER 


9 


time on a steamer travelling from New Orleans 
to Louisville, the game being described as ‘‘twenty- 
card Poker.” In the same book (page 164) there 
is another story of a Poker game, which took place 
in 1837 on the steamer Smelter, Captain Harris, 
running between Cincinnati and Galena. The 
chief figure in this game was a well-known Cincin¬ 
nati gambler named John Howard. This man 
is the first to mention “full-deck” Poker as a 
game known to him. He speaks as if it were at 
that time (1837) something not generally known, 
twenty-card Poker being evidently the regular 
thing. On page 83 of “Gambling Exposed” is a 
chapter entitled “A Game of Poker,” which begins 
by saying that there is no mention of Poker in any 
of the “Hoyle’s Games.” This remark would re¬ 
fer to any of the American Ployles which were pub¬ 
lished previous to 1843, which Green 

was writing. There were two works then in print, 
both entided “'Hoyle’s Games,” one published by 
George Long, New York, in 1825; and another by 
G. Cowperthwait, Philadelphia, in 1838. It should 
be mentioned that any book which treats of a 
number or variety of games is in America called 
a “Hoyle,” no matter by whom written or edited. 

The game which Green describes is twenty-card 
Poker, and he makes no mention of the full-pack 
game. He says: “It would seem to be a varia¬ 
tion of the game of Brag, being similar in many 
particulars, such as making pairs, passing, becom- 









lO 


PRACTICAL POKER 


ing eldest hand. It is usually played with twenty 
cards—ace, king, queen, jack, ten, of each suit— 
and by two, three, or four persons, each having 
hve cards.” 

When we come to text-books, we find that 
Poker was not mentioned in England until 1875, 
although it was played some years earlier. The 
Hon. Robert C. Schenck tells us that it was in the 
summer of 1872, while on a visit to a country house 
in Somersetshire, that he showed the guests how 
to play the American game. The hostess. Lady W., 
asked him to write out the rules for her, which he 
did, and a friend of hers printed them on his 
private printing-press. This is undoubtedly the 
first time the rules of the game were published in 
England. 

The English Hoyles, and Bohn’s “Handbook of 
Games,” make no reference to Poker. “Cavendish,” 
the great authority on Whist, and for forty years 
card editor of the Field, which, during his life¬ 
time, was the recognised authority on all matters 
relating to cards, mentions Poker in his “Round 
Games of Cards,” published by De La Rue & Co., 
in 1875. 

Bohn’s handbook was first published in 1850, 
but the English plates remained unchanged until 
1884. The American reprint, which came out in 
1850, tacked on a brief description of Poker, and 
draw Poker was inserted, out of place, in 1887. 

H. F. Anners, of Philadelphia, was the first 



FOSTER ON POKER n 


American publisher to include Poker in his 
“ Hoyle’s Games.” There is no mention of Poker 
in his 1845 edition, but a brief notice of it appears 
in the supplement to the 1850 edition. He says 
it was played with the full pack, and that any num¬ 
ber of persons up to ten could take part, which 
shows conclusively that there was no draw in 1850. 
According to his laws, cards faced in dealing could 
be refused or accepted by the player, and if anyone 
held a hand better than three of a kind, each of the 
others at the table had to pay him a bonus; so that 
he got something, whether anyone bet against him 
or not. The modern revival of this custom is the 
“ whangdoodle,” a round of compulsory jack-pots 
after a big hand has been shown. 

In the Hoyle published by Dick & Fitzgerald 
(edition of 1867) we find the first mention of draw 
Poker, but the old custom of putting up an ante 
by all the players before the cards are dealt, and 
the blind bet after cards are dealt, shows that the 
betting arrangements of straight Poker were still 
adhered to. In the old days, the blind succeeded 
the ante, and the player to the left of the one who 
put up a blind, which we should call a straddle, 
could either double it or call it; so that it was really 
nothing but a bet before the draw. 

Green mentions a case in the thirties, in which 
the player on the left of the dealer steadily refused 
'Iso put up more than the ante, which was a “bit” 
'—12^ cents—until in one particular deal he was 







12 


PRACTICAL POKER 


bantered into “blinding” a quarter. Each suc¬ 
ceeding player, all of whom were sharpers, imme¬ 
diately doubled him, and by the time it came rou 1 
to him to make good his blind, it cost him $15.75. 
On the top of this he bet a hundred dollars, and the j 
dealer, who was the principal card sharper, raised | 
him four hundred, which was called and the hands |; 
shown. 

In Thomas Frere’s Hoyle, published in 1857 by ■ 
T. W. Story, New York, on page 94 there is an ' 
explanation of this peculiar doubling of the blind. V 
In those days the blind and the ante stood in posi¬ 
tions exactly opposed to those they now occupy. 
Before the cards were dealt a stated ante was ( 
placed in the pool by each player. During the 
deal, or at least before any of the cards were looked 
at, it was the privilege of the eldest hand, and of no 
one else, to put up a blind bet. This blind bet 
could be doubled by any player in turn to the left. 
This seems to survive in our modern straddle of the " 
blind, which must be started by the man to the 
left of the eldest hand. There is no mention of 
draw Poker in this work, published in 1857. 

It would seem, from a comparison of these dates 
—Frere in 1857, and Dick & Fitzgerald in 1867— 
that draw Poker must have been introduced about 
the time of the Civil War, but that there was at first 
no change in the manner of putting up the ante ^ 
and betting on the hands. Everyone had to ante, 
whether he wanted to draw cards or not, and the 





FOSTER ON POKER 


13 


only optional bet was the blind.' Nowadays the 
blind is compulsory, and no one puts up an ante 
until he has seen his cards and decided to play 
them. 

In the same edition of Dick & Fitzgerald (1867) 
we find the first mention of the straight, or se¬ 
quence; but it is ranked as better than two pairs, 
and not as good as threes. This shows the combi¬ 
nation was new, and its real value had not been 
ascertained. For more than fifteen years after 
straights were introduced, players were warned by 
all writers on the game to ask, before they sat down 
to play, whether or not straights were played; and, 
if so, what they beat. The straight naturally led 
to the straight flush, to beat four of a kind, which 
is also mentioned in this 1867 edition. It is worthy 
of notice that almost all the questions submitted 
to Wilkes’ Spirit of the Times from 1870 to 1874 
were disputes about the proper rank of straights. 
It was about this time that the limit began to be 
insisted on; but its amount was much greater in 
proportion to the ante than it is now, one hundred 
times the ante being the usual thing. 

Jack-pots were not mentioned in any work on 
Poker until 1875. The 1870 edition of Dick & 
Fitzgerald’s Hoyle does not speak of them, but 
both jack-pots and mistigris—playing with the 
joker in the pack—are described in the 1875 edi- 



Dn. In the decisions in the Spirit of the Times 
lere is not a single question about jack-pots until 








14 


PRACTICAL POKER 


the year 1874. Then a correspondent asked if he 
must show his entire hand or openers only when he 
was called, to which the editor replied, “We know 
of no rules for jack-pot Poker.” 

Nothing since the introduction of the draw has 
so completely changed the game of Poker as the 
invention of the jack-pot, and no other innovation 
has been so fiercely fought agaiAst by the best 
players. It is undoubtedly true that the jack-pot 
has been the ruin of the scientific Poker player 
of the old school, because it has introduced the 
element of a compulsory payment not based on 
judgment. Before the advent of the jack-pot, the 
player who refused to come in on less than a pair of 
court cards had a steady percentage of two-elev¬ 
enths in his favour against players who were in the' 
habit of coming in on lower pairs. This in itself 
was enough to beat any game. But in playing 
jack-pots a man must contribute to the pool 
whether he wants to or not, no matter what he 
holds. 

It is probable that the scientific players brought 
their troubles on themselves by driving their less 
cautious opponents to the invention of the jack. 
Most people like to play whether they hold court 
cards or not; and sitting out hand after hand, wait¬ 
ing for court cards, is not amusing, even if it has 
a percentage of two-elevenths in its favour finan- 
cially. Winterblossom says that jack-pots were evi¬ 
dently invented for the special purpose of stimulat- 



FOSTER ON POKER 


15 


I j ing close players to come in oftener. The conserv¬ 
ative players of the old days, who never came in on 
; anything less than court cards, were continually 
throwing up their hands without putting up a chip, 
and the liberal players had no one to bet against. 

I It was therefore suggested that when no one came 
in everyone should be obliged to put up an amount 
equal to the usual ante, and that no one should 
be allowed to draw cards unless someone had a 
pair of court cards. As the lowest court cards are 
jacks, the opener must have jacks or better. This 
! accomplished a double object. It made the close 
I players pay, whether they had any cards or not, 
and it prevented the liberal players from throwing 
away their money on small pairs. 

I The jack-pot, with its accompanying small-limit 
I game, has completely killed bluffing—that pride 
and joy of the old-timer, and eternal source of 
inspiration to the story-teller. Modern Poker has 
gradually become more of a lottery than any¬ 
thing else, “with the addition of a condition which 
the lottery system lacks,” as Blackbridge puts it; 
“namely, that all the players must buy tickets.” 

By the year 1880 the rank of the straight had 
^een fixed, and the unlimited game had totally dis- 
Ai]>pearc-d. Since then there has been little or no 
I change in the game, except in a continued tendency 
f to narrow the proportion between the ante and the 
limit, and to straighten out some minor difficulties 
in the laws. 







i6 


PRACTICAL POKER 


The two great steps in the history and progress of 
Poker have undoubtedly been the introduction of 
the draw to improve the hand, and the invention of 
the jack-pot as a cure for cautiousness. Whatever 
may be said against it, and no matter how much it 
has upset all the fine calculations of the old school, 
the jack-pot has undoubtedly come to stay, and 
any person who aspires to a thorough knowledge 
of Practical Poker must adapt himself to the cir¬ 
cumstances, and study the new conditions under 
which the modern game must be played. 



THE LAWS OF POKER 





THE LAWS OF POKER 


FORMATION OF TABLE 

1. Any number from two to seven can play at 
the same table. If eight play, the dealer takes 
no cards, and deals off his own jack-pot without 
anteing. 

2. After the pack has been properly shuffled and 
cut, any person may throw round one card to each 
player, face up, and the first jack deals. 

3. After the first dealer has been decided upon, 
should any player demand it, the other seats may 
be determined by the dealer’s throwing round a 
card to each of the other players, face up, each 
taking his seat in accordance with the rank of the 
card received, beginning with the lowest, who shall 
sit on the dealer’s left, the next lowest on his left 
again, and so on. Ace is low in cutting. 

4. In case of ties, the cards tieing shall be taken 
up and two others thrown out; but the new cards 
shall decide nothing but the tie, the others retain¬ 
ing their original order. 

5. At the end of every hour from the time play 
begins, there may be a similar demand for a re¬ 
arrangement of the seats; but in all such subse- 








20 


PRACTICAL POKER 


quent throwing round for position, every player at 
the table, including the dealer, shall have a card 
dealt to him. 

6. If any candidate enters a table at which play 
is in progress, any of those at the table may demand 
that a card shall be thrown round between each of 
those playing, and the newcomer shall take his seat 
where the lowest of these cards falls. 

LIMITS 

7. Limits must be agreed upon, before play 
begins, for the amount of the blind, for the ante 
in jack-pots, and for the amount of the raise. It 
must also be agreed whether the blind shall or 
shall not be variable in amount at the option of 
the age. (The amount of a regular penalty should 
also be agreed upon for such minor offences as 
refusing to show a hand in the call, or a part of 
such hand; telling how many cards another player 
drew, etc. The amount of premium to be paid to 
straight flushes, if any, should also be settled.) 

DEALING 

8. Any player at the table shall have the right to 
shuffle the cards, the dealer last. When two packs 
are used, the second player from the dealer on his 
left shall make up the still pack for the next deal. 

Q. The dealer must present the pack to the pone 
(the player on his right hand) to be cut. The pone 
can either cut them or let them run. If he declines 






FOSTER ON POKER 


21 


to cut them, no other player can insist on doing so. 

If the cards are cut, at least five must remain in 
each packet. 

10. If there is any confusion in the cut, or if any 
card is exposed, the pack shall be re-shuffied and 
again presented to be cut. 

11. After a cut, the parts of the pack must be 
re-united before dealing. Any deal made with only 
a part of the pack in the dealer’s hand is a misdeal. 

12. The cards must be dealt one at a time, face 
down, in rotation from left to right, beginning on 
the dealer’s left hand, and continuing until each 
player has received five cards. 

13. If a player deals out of turn, or with the 
wrong cards, he must be stopped before the last 
card is dealt, or the deal stands good. 

14. The deal passes in regular rotation to T > 
left, except in a round of jacks (a whangdoodle), 
when the same player must continue to deal until 
the pot has been opened and won. 

MISDEALING 

15. It is a misdeal if any card is found faced in 
the pack when dealing the origirai^^^J^^. or if the 
pack is proved to be imperfect, or n dealer 
gives six cards to more than one player, or xf he 
deals too many or too few hands, or if he exposes 
more than one card in dealing. 

16. If there is a misdeal, the same dealer must 
deal again with the same cards. 

C 






22 


PRACTICAL POKER 


17. An imperfect pack is one in which there 
are missing cards, duplicate cards, or any card so 
marked that it can be identified by the back. 

18. A misdeal on account of an imperfect pack 
must be claimed before the last card is dealt for the 
draw, unless duplicate cards are drawn. 

19. If any card is faced in dealing it to a player, 
the player must accept the faced card, provided it 
was not faced in the pack; but if two cards are 
exposed in the same deal, even to different players, 
there must be a new deal. 

IRREGULAR HANDS 

20. Any hand of more or less than five cards, 
any part of which has been lifted or looked at, is 
fotil. 

« 2i. If, during the deal, or after the cards are all 
dealt, any player discovers and announces, before 
lifting or looking at any of his cards, that he has less 
than five, the others having their right number, 
the dealer lUst give him another card from the top 
of the ; CO complete his hand, as soon as his 
aiiViiLion is called to it. 

22. If discovers that he has more than 

five, tb:tj oth^^ having their right number, he can 
demand s new deal, or he can ask the dealer to 
draw a card, provided no ante has been made by 
any preceding player. The card so drawn shall be 
placed at the bottom of the pack without being 
shown to anyone. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


23 


23. If any ante has been put up, or if more 
than one player has been given six cards, there 
must be a new deal. 

24. If one player finds he has six cards, while 
the player sitting next him has four only, neither 
of them having lifted or looked at any of his cards, 
the dealer must be called upon to draw one from 
the surplus hand, giving it to the other hand. 

25. If both players have lifted or looked at any 
of their cards, their hands are both dead, and they 
must stay out of that pool, leaving in it any antes 
they may have made. 

26. If one has lifted or looked and the other 

has not, the dealer must draw, face down, from the 
surplus hand to make the hands equal, and the 
hand which has not been lifted or looked at can 
then be played, the other being dead. > 

“BLIND” AND “STRADDLE” 

27. Before the cards are dealt, the age (the 
player on the dealer’s left) must put up the amount 
agreed upon for the blind. 

28. The player immediately on the left of the 
age may straddle this blind by 4 g up doulde 
the amount, provided he does so betore seeing any 
of his cards. If he straddles, the player next to the 
left again may straddle him in turn, and so on until 
half the betting limit is reached. 

.29. Should any player in his proper turn refuse 
to straddle, no player on his left can do so. 






24 


PRACTICAL POKER 


THE ANTE 

30. After the cards are dealt, each player in 
turn, beginning on the left of the age, or the last 
straddler, if any, must declare to play or pass. If 
he plays, he must put into the pool an amount 
equal to double the blind or straddle. If he passes, 
he must throw his cards into the discard pile, which 
should be in front of the next dealer, or the player 
who will collect and shuffle the cards for the next 
deal when two packs are used. 

31. A player, having once thrown up his cards, 
cannot take them back again under any circum¬ 
stances. 

32. Any player putting up an ante is at liberty 
to raise it any amount within the betting limit, and 

following player will have to see both ante and 
rLse, or throw up his cards. 

^ Any player who is already in, having anted, 
but who is raised by a following player, must either 
meet the raise or pass out. If he has been raised, 
he can raise again in^urn. 

34. Any count ^ once placed in the pool, 
whether ir. ^ycr’s right turn or otherwise, can¬ 
not be taken but agahi. Should any player ante 
or raise out of turn, that shall not bar any preced¬ 
ing player, whose proper turn it was, from raising. 

35. *11 any player raises the ante, and no other 
will meet the raise, the one who raised takes the 
pool without showing his hand. 





FOSTER ON POKER 


25 

36. If only one player antes, the age may either 
till his own blind, raise the ante, pass out altogether, 
or make a jack-pot of it by paying the amount of 
the ante to the single player who put it up. 

37. If no one antes to play against the age, it is 
a natural jack-pot for the next deal. 

DRAWING CARDS 

38. When two or more players have anted eq)"-' 
amounts, each of those who have so anted, begi*:' 
ning with the one next on the left of the dealer, 
may discard any or all of the cards in the original 
hand, and draw others in their places. 

39. In dealing for the draw, the pack must not 
be re-shuffled or cut, and all the cards ' -wn niiist 
be dealt face down, the dealer giving each player 
all the cards he asks for before proceeding to help 
the next one. 

40. Each player who is entitled to draw cards 
must ask distinctly for the number he wants, first 
discarding an equal number from his original hand. 
When helping himself, t-'X / 'hTimust name aloud 
the number he takes. 

41. No player but the dealer nt^'d reply to any 
question as to how many cards he drew, and 
neither the dealer nor any other player is allowed 
to -give the information. (There should be a pen- 

' alty for so doing.) But any ])]ayer may ask how 
many cards the dealc: »'.Vew, and the dealer must 








26 


PRACTICAL POKER 


answer correctly, provided the player putting the 
question is still in the pool and has not made a bet. 

42. If any card is found faced in the pack when 
dealing for the draw, it must be placed amongst the 
discards, after having been shown or named to all 
the players. 

43. If a card which was not faced in the pack 
is exposed in the act of giving it to a player in 
tjie draw, or if it should by any means be turned 

o^er or exposed after leaving the dealer’s hand, 
^knd before the player for whom it is intended 
touches it, the player cannot take it, but must wait 
until all the other players, including the dealer, 
have been helped, before the exposed card can be 
replaced ; but the player shall retain any other 
cards ask;\i for and given at the same time which 
are noJ exposed. Cards falling below the table are 
not exposed cards. 

44. Any cards once placed on the discard pile 
cannot be taken back into the hand, or even 
looked at, under any circumstances. 

45. Each player must watch and guard the 
cards laid off for hi the dealer. Should any 
such cards become Jd with the discards, or 
with the cards of another player, and the players 
whose cards are mixed not be able to agree which 
are which without looking at their faces, the 
dealer may be called upon to pick them out. If 
he is unable to do so, the players must draw at 
random, face down, oi abandon the hand. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


27 


46. Should any player inadvertently throw his 
discard on the cards just laid off by the dealer for 
another player, in such a manner that they cannot 
be separated without looking at the faces, the 
dealer may be asked to say which are which, or the 
player who has discarded may be called upon to 
write down the cards he discarded, and the player 
whose draw has been mixed with these cards may 
then pick them all up and select from them those 
that the other discarded, and after showing them to 
him to be sure that they are correct, lay them upon 
the discard pile, retaining the others. 

INCORRECT DRAWING 

47. Should any player ask for an incorrect num¬ 
ber of cards, and discover the error before lifting or 
looking at any of those given him, he may amend 
his call, provided the next player has not been 
helped. If the next player has been helped, the 
number of cards asked for must be taken into the 
hand. If too many have been asked for, an addi¬ 
tional discard must be made before seeing them. 
If too few, the hand is foul. 

48. If the dealer gives a player more or less than 
the number he asked for, and attention is called to 
the error before the player lifts or looks at any of 
the cards laid off, the dealer must correct the mis¬ 
take as soon as his attention is called to it, even if 
he ^has helped other players in the interval. Such 
other players retain the cards given them. 





28 


PRACTICAL POKER 


49. In case of any dispute as to whether the 
player or the dealer is in fault, such as the player’s 
insisting that he asked for two, and the dealer’s 
maintaining that he said three, the majority vote of 
the players shall decide. If it is a tie, the dealer 
has the casting vote. 

50. If a player lets another player on his left be 
helped out of his proper turn, the player who has 
been passed by has no remedy, and must either 
play his hand pat or retire from the pool. If he 
has already discarded, his hand is dead. 

BETTING ON THE HANDS 

51. After all the cards have been dealt for the 
draw, the first player on the left of the age must 
either bet on his hand or pass out of the pool. If 
he bets, each player in turn on his left must either 
call the bet, or raise it, or pass out. 

52. Even if the age has passed out, or has been 
straddled, the first player on his left must make 
the first bet, as the privilege of the age (having the 
last say as to betting) never passes. 

53. Any player betting or raising out of his 
proper turn, shall not be allowed to take his 
money but of the pool again; and any such irreg¬ 
ular betting or raising shall not prevent any pre¬ 
ceding player from raising in his right turn. 

54. Any player who borrows to raise a bet, must 
also borrow to call if he is raised in turn. He 
cannot borrow to raise, and afterwards call for 
“a sight.” 




FOSTER ON POKER 


29 


55. Any money or chips once placed in the pool, 
even by mistake, cannot be taken out again, unless 
it is admitted that the player was mistaken as to the 
value of the counters put in. 

CALLING AND SHOWING 

56. When a call is made by two or more players 
betting an equal amount, all the hands in the call 
must be shown to the table, and the best Poker 
hand wins. There is no penalty for mis-calling a 
hand, as the cards show for themselves. (Any 
player who is in a call, and refuses to show his 
hand, or any part of it, even if he acknowledges 
it is not the best, should be penalised an amount 
agreed upon by the players.) 

57. In calling, the whole hand must be shown. 
It is not enough for the calling hand to show just 
enough to beat the called hand. 

58. Should any of the hands shown in a call 
contain more or less than five cards, it is foul, and 
cannot win the pool, provided any other player has 
a fair hand to dispute it. If both hands shown for 
the pool are foul, the chips remain on the table, 
and the next deal is a jack-pot. 








30 


PRACTICAL POKER 


JACK-POT LAWS 


MAKING JACK-POTS 

59. When’ no one comes in against the blind, 
the next deal must be a jack-pot. If only one 
player comes in against the blind, the age may 
make the next deal a jack by paying the player 
who came in the amount of his ante. If any hand 
shown in a call, to decide the winner of a pool, is 
better than a flush, the next deal must be a jack¬ 
pot. Hands which are shown, but were not called, 
do not count unless by agreement. If four of a 
kind, or a straight flush, is shown in a call, there 
must be a whangdoodle—that is, a round of jack¬ 
pots, each player at the table dealing off his own 
jack. (It may also be agreed that a straight flush 
shall be paid a premium by each of the other play¬ 
ers before beginning the whangdoodle.) 

60. Any other jack-pots (such as those made by 
showing hands of less value, by the circulation 
of a “buck,” or for misdeals) must be matters of 
previous agreement among the players. That the 
last hands before quitting time shall be a round of 
jacks, must also be agreed to. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


31 


JACK-POT ANTES 

61. Before the cards are dealt, each player must 
put up the amount agreed upon for the ante in 
jack-pots. Any player may request to be left out, 
putting up no ante and receiving no cards, pro¬ 
vided the other players all agree to it. 

OPENING JACK-POTS 

62. Each player in turn, beginning on the left of 
the dealer, must declare whether or not he will open 
it and for how much. The opener must have jacks 
or better, but no one is obliged to open if he does 
not wish to. 

63. Progressive jacks are a matter of agreement, 
otherwise the openers will always be jacks or better. 
Variations in the amount for which the pot may be 
opened, depending on the amount already in the 
pool, must also be matters of agreement. 

64. After the pot has been opened, each player 
in turn, beginning on the left of the opener, must 
declare to stay or to pass out. If he stays, he must 
put up an amount equal to that for which the pot 
has been opened, with the privilege of raising it 
any amount within the betting limit. 

65. Players who have passed before the pot was 
opened may not only come in after it is opened, 
but may raise the opener in their proper turn if 
they wish to; but any player who has once passed 






32 


PRACTICAL POKER 


cannot afterwards open it if any player on his left 
has in the interval declared to pass. 


FALSE OPENERS 

66. Should a player open without the proper 
qualification, his hand is dead, and all he has put 
into the pool is forfeited. 

67. Should any player have come in to play 
against the false openers, the pot shall be played 
for just as if it had been legitimately opened. 

68. If the false opener discovers his mistake 
before all have declared'(none of those who have 
declared having come in), any player declaring 
after the mistake has been announced must have 
openers in his own hand in order to open it, just as 
if the false opener had passed. 

69. If the false opener does not announce his 
mistake until after he has drawn cards, he not 
only forfeits all his rights to the current pool, 
but after the pool is decided he must ante for all 
the other players and for himself for another jack¬ 
pot, which shall immediately follow the one falsely 
opened. 

70. Should the false opener have played his. 
hand pat—that is, without having drawn any cards 
—he shall not be liable to this second penalty of 
giving the others a free rid^. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


33 


SHOWING OPENERS ONLY 

71. As any player coming in against the opener 
may raise the ante any amount within the betting 
limit, the opener may decline to meet this raise. 
If he does, before withdrawing from the pool, he 
must show his entire hand, face up, to the table. 
(See Law 74.) 

DISCARDING AND DRAWING 

72. If any player stays in against the opener, or 
if two or more stay in after the opener has been 
raised out, they can discard and draw subject to 
the same rules as those in force for pools which are 
not jacks, the first man to the left of the dealer 
being helped first, no matter who opened. 

SPLITTING OPENERS 

73. The player who opens a jack-pot shall not 
be allowed to discard in such a manner as to 
destroy or split his opening qualification, not even 
to draw for a flush or a straight, unless it is agreed 
that four cards of a flush or straight shall constitute 
legitimate openers. 

BETTING 

74. If the opener is still in the pool after the 
draw, he must make the first bet. If he declines 
to bet, he must show openers, but need not show 
the remainder of his hand. (See Law 71.) 

D 






34 


PRACTICAL POKER 


75. If the opener is not in the pool after the 
draw, or if he refuses to bet, the next man on the 
left of the opener must make the first bet, and this 
bet may be called or raised by any following player 
in his proper turn. 


FATTENING 

76. If no one opens a jack-pot, the deal passes 
to the left, except in whangdoodles, and each player 
adds one white counter to the pool. If it is not 
opened on the second deal, another white counter 
must be added by each player, the deal again pass¬ 
ing to the left, and so on for each succeeding deal 
until the pot is opened and won. 

DISPUTES 

77. Any dispute as to matters of fact should be 
left to the decision of the majority of the players, 
the dealer having the casting vote if it is'otherwise 
a tie, he being one of the disputants. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


35 



DISPUTED RULES 


There are several points in the Laws of Poker 
about which disputes and misunderstandings con¬ 
tinually arise, and newspapers are constantly called 
upon to settle wagers which are laid as the result of 
the players’ imperfect knowledge of the laws of the 
game. Unfortunately, the persons called upon to 
I decide these questions are often no better informed 
than those who submit the points for decision— 
i rulings which flatly contradict one another being 
; continually given by the editors of various card 

i columns. 

In the absence of any official code of laws for 
Poker, such as we have for games like Whist, 
Bridge, and Skat, the laws drawn up by any par- 
1 ticular writer, or even agreed upon by several, can¬ 
not be accepted as final or official. Every club in 
which Poker is permitted has its own House Rules 
for the minor details, but the main principles of 
the laws are usually about the same. It is only by 
^ a careful comparison of a large number of these 
i codes, and an exhaustive examination of the rea- 
' sons that have led to the modification of certain 
• laws from time to time, that we can arrive at a just 
i estimate of the value or fairness of any individual 
law upon which authorities differ. 







3^ 


PRACTICAL POKER 


An authority whose decision is worth anything 
must not only know the printed rules of the game, 
but he must be thoroughly familiar with the rea¬ 
sons underlying those rules—he must know why 
the law was made, or why it was changed. 

The Author has made a special study of this 
part of the subject, and has probably decided 
more Poker disputes than any person living. The 
reasons underlying many of these decisions (which 
are also the reasons for the existence of the laws 
themselves) are given here, in order that every 
Poker player may not only understand his owm 
rights, but be able to explain his position to the 
satisfaction of others with whom he may become 
involved in a dispute. 

The object of a code of laws is not to burden 
the game with unnecessary regulations, but to pro¬ 
vide the honest player with a weapon, so that he 
can protect himself against the trickster without 
having to make accusations which it might be 
difficult or impossible to prove. 

All the laws in the books are not for everyday 
use, just as there are a great many laws upon the 
statute books which are not enforced; but they are 
there in case they are wanted to reach any person 
who cannot be reached in any other way. The 
same is true of card laws. For instance, we have 
the general rule in all card games that any player 
at the table may demand to shuffie the pack, no 
matter whose deal it is. But for this rule, an 
honest player, seeing something suspicious in the 



FOSTER ON POKER 


37 


way the cards were gathered together, and noticing 
that there was nothing but a pretence at shuffling 
them, would have either to submit to it, or charge 
the dealer with unfairness—a rather unpleasant 
alternative. 

A few of the points about which misunder¬ 
standings and wagers most frequently arise are 
the following:— 

In dealing cards for the draw, if a card is 
exposed, there is almost always a dispute as to 
whether the player should be compelled to take 
the card, or be given another in its place imme¬ 
diately, or should wait until all the others, includ¬ 
ing the dealer, have been helped. The correct 
or strict ruling is, that he must wait until all the 
others have been helped. 

Many persons cannot see any reason for this 
decision, and argue that it would save time and 
trouble to replace the card immediately. So it 
would, and if no one objects it may be done; but 
the law must stay on the books for the reason al¬ 
ready given—in order that the players may protect 
themselves should it seem to them necessary to do 
so. The rule was made because certain dealers 
were in the habit of locating certain cards in the 
pack in such a manner that when it came to dealing 
for the draw, they could give to one man, whom they 
wished to pluck, three of a kind, such as three tens; 
and to themselves, or to a confederate, three of a 
kind slightly better than tens. The cards were 
“stacked” on the assumption that any intervening 






38 


PRACTICAL POKER 


player would draw three cards. If he did not draw 
three, but two or one only, the dealer turned over or 
“faced” the others as if by accident, so that the two 
triplets fell as originally intended. In order to ■ 
prevent this alteration of the run of the cards, the ^ 
law was changed so that it made no difference 
whether the cards were faced or not. The enforce¬ 
ment of this rule very soon put a stop to what was 
known as the “top stock.” 

The objection to compelling a player to take a 
card faced in the draw, just as he has always been 
compelled to take one faced in the original deal,^ ' 
is that one of the cards in his complete hand 
would be absolutely known to all the other play- \ 
ers; whereas he may have discarded the card which 
was faced in the original hand. 

The most frequent disputes which arise at Poker 
are in connection with jack-pots, especially in such 
matters as splitting openers, false openers, and 
abandoned hands. In the following code these ! 
points have been covered by laws which are framed . > 
with a view to doing justice to both sides of the ■ 
dispute, not forgetting at the same time that due S 
allowance must be made for human nature. A 9 
man is not a machine, and there are certain things 9 
which you cannot make him do at the card-table. 9 
For instance: no one should throw up his cards in |( 
a jack-pot until everyone has passed out, or until it 
comes round to his turn after it has been opened; 
but players will do it, and no rule has been sug- 







FOSTER ON POKER 


39 


gested that will stop them. A trifling irregularity 
or carelessness on the part of one player should 
not deprive another of his rights, but contributory 
negligence on the part of any player should prevent 
his demanding a penalty to which he would other¬ 
wise have been entitled. 

There is a law to the effect that no one but the 
dealer can be required to tell how many cards he 
drew, but in several books it is stated that the dealer 
cannot be compelled to answer the question “after 
a bet has been made.” This statement of the law 
is clearly defective and unjust, because many per¬ 
sons, having the first say, will make a bet the 
moment their cards are dealt to them in the draw, 
often without looking at the draw at all or waiting 
to see what others ask for. This bet would prevent 
any player asking the dealer how many cards the 
dealer drew, although the bet was made before 
the dealer drew at all. It is manifestly fairer to 
make the rule that the dealer must answer, pro¬ 
vided the player asking him has not made a bet, 
but is still in the pool. That the player be in the 
pool is a necessary qualification, otherwise a person 
who had no interest in the pot might unfairly call 
attention to the dealer’s draw, which the other 
players might have failed to notice. 

The rule that the dealer shall not tell the num¬ 
ber of cards drawn by any player other than himself 
is sound for two reasons. In the first place, it is 
the business of each player to watch the draw for 





40 


PRACTICAL POKER 


himself, and everyone but the dealer has to ask for 
cards, so that anyone can hear what another gets. 
It is just possible that the dealer may help himself 
without stating the number he takes, therefore the 
question can be asked him. In the second place, 
why should the dealer be allowed to give informa¬ 
tion about a player which the player himself can 
refuse? What guarantee is there that the dealer 
remembers correctly the number asked for by any 
particular player? Previous to 1870, each player 
was obliged to tell how many cards he drew, if 
asked by an opponent; but so many mistakes were 
made, intentionally or otherwise, and so many con¬ 
tradictions were hurled across the table, that the 
present rule came into force. 

One of the modern vexed questions at Poker 
is the splitting of openers in jack-pots. The most 
rational decision seems to be that the player who 
opens a jack-pot shall not be allowed to spht his 
openers under any circumstances. The moment 
the opener is allowed to split, a string of compli¬ 
cations enters the game, to be followed inevitably 
by unpleasant circumstances. If an opener is al¬ 
lowed to split, the other players must either take 
his word for it that he had openers, or he must be 
able to prove it. 

The usual method is for the opener to lay aside 
his discard, with a view to producing it later; but 
the proof thus offered is only presumptive. What 
positive evidence is there that the card shown in 




FOSTER ON PORER 


4t 

his hand was in his hand before the draw ? Laying 
aside a discard, whether attention is called to it or 
not, either betrays the nature of the player’s game 
(which is contrary to the whole spirit of Poker) or 
it is a bluff. What is to prevent a player holding 
two pairs, or three, or even four of a kind, opening 
a jack-pot and carefully laying aside his discard, 
ostentatiously calling attention to it ? 

If an opener is allowed to split a pair, why 
should he not be allowed to split two pairs, laying 
aside three cards ? Many players, on being raised, 
will discard one of two small pairs on the chance 
of making threes out of the other pair. Why 
should they not be allowed to do it after they have 
opened a jack-pot? 

The preservation of the discard leads to endless 
trouble. What is the player to do with it ? If he 
puts it in his pocket, he may forget it, and the next 
deal will be made with an imperfect pack; or he 
will be accused of cheating if cards are found in his 
pockets. If he leaves it on the table, it may be 
gathered up with the other discards, and he will not 
be able to produce it. In the hurry and confusion 
of a large game, it is difficult enough to keep 
one’s hand and draw from being interfered with, 
without having to take care of a discard as well. 
There is no place to put a discard without calling 
attention to it, and that is the chief objection to the 
practice. 

Openers are almost always split for the purpose 





42 


PRACTICAL POKER 


of trying to fill a flush or a straight. It was this 
fact that prompted the introduction of the rule 
allowing a player to open a jack-pot with a bobtail, 
so that whether he split a pair of openers to draw 
to a bobtail, or opened on the bobtail itself, did not 
matter. This was a very good rule—better even 
than its proposers knew—and it is a pity it is not 
generally adopted, as it does away with all the 
troubles of a protected discard. 

If a player is allowed to open on a four-card 
flush or straight, there can be no question about 
his complying with the rule of keeping openers, 
because he must keep his bobtail, having nothing 
else to draw to if he takes one card only. If he 
drew one card to two pairs, they are openers. In 
any case, the hand will show for itself. 

If the idea of fixing upon ‘‘jacks or better” was 
to force the player to hold a hand of a certain value 
before allowing him the privilege of opening, why 
not allow him to open on any hand of equal value, 
just as he is allowed to open on any hand of greater 
value? It is very easy to ascertain the rank or 
value of jacks or better. In the 2,598,960 possible 
Poker hands-which can be held, all different, there 
are 549,564 which are jacks or better, and there are 
573,916 which are four-card flushes or straights, 
in which the fifth card does not make a pair of 
jacks or better. 

That is to say, the odds against any player 
having dealt to him a hand good enough to open 



FOSTER ON POKER 


43 


on, jacks or better, are 2,598,960 to 549,564, or 
37 to 10; while the odds against any player hav¬ 
ing a bobtail dealt to him are 35 to 10. 

It is very curious that there should be no possible 
hand at Poker so near the average value of jacks 
or better as a four-card flush or straight. If the 
rule were adopted to allow bobtails to open jack¬ 
pots, all the troubles and disputes about splitting 
openers would be immediately done away with. 

When the player is allowed to split openers, but 
is not allowed to open on a four-card flush or 
straight, there are two ways of overcoming the 
difficulties of the preserved discard:— 

{a) The player can be made to shqw both his 
openers before he splits them, and can be com¬ 
pelled to discard one of them face up. This is 
necessary in order to provide against his showing a 
pair of jacks, then putting them back into his hand, 
laying out some card not shown, and drawing to 
jacks up. The objection to this method is, that 
showing a pair of high denomination may seriously 
affect the draw or the play of someone else at the 
table. 

{b) The player can be made to lay aside both 
his openers without showing them, keeping them 
together on the table, and drawing one card to the 
three remaining in his hand. If the card drawn 
fills a flush or a straight, with either of the discarded 
pair oh the table to complete the hand, the hand 
shows for itseff; and there is no question about the 




44 


PRACTICAL POKER 


openers, because they have never been separated. 
In this case there can be no bluff, such as holding a 
pair in the hand and laying a pair on the table, be¬ 
cause one of the pair on the table is lost and cannot 
be taken back into the hand after the draw. To 
draw one card to a pair in the hand, in the hope of 
making threes, would be folly. 

Both these methods are open to the objection 
that they force the owner to disclose the nature of 
his hand. It cannot be too strongly urged that 
this violates one of the fundamental principles of 
the game. The guarded or “nailed” discard com¬ 
pels the player to admit that, although he opened 
the pot, he has nothing but a bobtail to draw to. 
The only remedy for this seems to be to rnake the 
opener of a jack-pot always preserve his discard, 
no matter what he draws to, or whether he splits 
or not. This would prevent calling any special at¬ 
tention to the hand when the openers were split. 
As the practice now is, it is only when the opener 
splits that he preserves his discard. The objec¬ 
tion to it has already been mentioned—the diffi¬ 
culty of taking care of a discard amidst the con¬ 
fusion of an ordinary game, in which there are so 
many other things to watch. 

If the discard were always preserved by the 
opener, such cases as the following would not arise: 
—A opened, asked for two cards, and threw his 
discard into the deadwood. He looked at the two 
cards drawn, and bet the limit. On being raised 
the limit, he knocks on the table, saying, “Your 



FOSTER ON POKER 


45 


money.” When asked to show openers, it was 
found that he had not a pair of any kind in his 
hand nor a face card. He said he had opened on 
three nines, and must have discarded two of them 
by mistake. As his discard was not preserved, he 
could not prove this statement, nor could any of 
the other players successfully deny it. Having 
apparently drawn to false openers, is he to pay the 
penalty of giving the others a free ride, or not ? 

Here is another case:—A opened, and several 
came in. A asked for three cards, which were laid 
off by the dealer. The next man, B, asked for three 
and got them, just as A announced that he had 
made a mistake and wanted two only. Dealer says 
it is too late, and A must discard and take in the 
three asked for and given. This he does. On the 
show-down, A has three tens. B insists that A 
cannot win the pot, as he drew three cards to a 
pair of tens, and therefore did not hold openers. 
A says he had three tens to come in on, and had to 
discard one, and that his asking for three instead 
of two was simply inadvertence. In such a case 
A’s discard should certainly have been preserved. 

The rule that the opener shall not be allowed to 
split seems the simplest, and although it trenches 
a little on the principle that a player shall discard 
and draw as he likes, it may be taken as a compen¬ 
sation of the privilege of opening a jack. If a 
player goes into a pool with the understanding 
that the privilege of opening carries with it the 
obligation of holding his openers, it should be fair 








46 


PRACTICAL POKER 


enough. In the opinion of the Author, the diffi¬ 
culties and complications of preserving a discard 
are greater than the hardship of being forced to 
keep openers. One always has the remedy of not 
opening the pot if one has a bobtail as well as a 
pair of openers. 

Another great source of trouble at the Poker 
table is false openers. There is no use in en¬ 
forcing harsh penalties against a player for a lit¬ 
tle carelessness in looking at his cards. When a 
player inadvertently opens a pot which he should 
not have opened, he seldom discovers his error 
until he comes to draw cards, unless he is raised 
and takes a second look. 

If no one comes in against the false openers, the 
remedy is very simple—the opener loses what he 
has put up to open it, and the deal passes to the 
next player whose turn it is to deal. 

If anyone has come in against the false openers, 
there are three ways to play: to go on and play for 
the pot as if the opening had been regular, the false 
opener being out of it, of course; to withdraw all 
the bets but the false opener’s, and see if anyone 
can open it; to withdraw the bets and deal the 
cards afresh, either by the same dealer or the next 
in turn. 

Both the latter methods involve more or less 
confusion and loss of time, and the simplest solu¬ 
tion of the difficulty seems to be, to make the rule 
that a pot once opened, even if wrongly, shall be 



FOSTER ON POKER 


47 


played for, provided anyone has come in against 
the false openers before they are discovered. 

If no one has come in before the error is an¬ 
nounced, but some are still to say, it may fairly be 
assumed that any who have passed could not have 
opened; but if anyone who has still to say can open, 
those who have passed must be allowed to come in 
against him, provided they have not thrown up 
their hands, the false opener being out of the pool 
in any case. 

If anyone has come in against the false openers, 
i the play proceeds exactly as if the false opener had 
I been raised out, or had a foul hand, his money 
f staying in the pot as a forfeit. 

Should the player draw to false openers without 
announcing them, the play is, to say the least, sus¬ 
picious, and he should not only forfeit all he has put 
into the pool, but be obliged to ante for all the 
others at the table for another jack-pot after the 
current one has been decided. This is better than 

( making him return the antes and fatteners to each 
player, and is not as hard a penalty as it seems, 
because the penalised player has a chance to win 
[ all his forfeit-money back again if he can win the 
I next jack. This putting up for all the others in a 
jack-pot is called ‘‘giving them a free ride.” 

) It is necessary to distinguish between cases in 
ji which the player has actually drawn cards to false 
openers, and those in which he stands pat. If he 
looks at his hand, opens a jack, looks at his hand 







48 


PRACTICAL POKER 


again, discards from it, and draws to it, he must 
suffer the double penalty; losing all he has put into 
the current pool, and giving the players a free ride 
for the next one. But if he has looked at his hand 
once only and played it pat, perhaps thinking he 
has a straight or a flush, he is not subject to the'*, 
second penalty, but simply loses his interest in the 
current pool. 

Disputes frequently arise as to whether. the 
opener of a jack-pot shall show his entire hand or 
openers only, when he is not called. The rule is, | 
that if no one has come in against him, he must j 
show his entire hand; but if anyone has come inJ 
against him, and they draw cards, the opener nee'f 
show openers only. The reasons for this decision 
are as follows:— 

In a jack-pot, every player has paid an equal 
amount for his original hand of five cards; therefore 
each would have an equal right to see what the 
others had, if it were a show-down without betting. \ 
But one player has openers, and puts up a bet. If | 
no one will see this bet, he must take it down again 
and show his hand for the pool; and as the pool 
he shows for has been equally contributed to by all 
the players, he must show his whole hand—not in 
competition against the others, but to satisfy them 
that he has taken it legitimately. 

But if the opener bets, and another person comes 
in and bets against him, those who refuse to stay in 
the pool are no longer on an equality. Suppose 
those who stay draw cards, and the opener bets 








FOSTER ON POKER 


49 


against them and is not called. It is clearly no 
one’s business what he drew, because they will not 
pay the additional amount necessary to see that 
part of his game. All they are entitled to see is the 
part of the original hand which justified him in 
opening the pot. Everyone at the table can de¬ 
mand to see that. No one can see what he drew 
unless they call the bet he made after the draw. 

Players should be careful never to throw their 
hands into the deadwood until they have seen 
, openers. Even if they refuse to come in after the 
pot is opened, it is wise to hold on to the original 
* hand, because the opener’s hand may be foul; but 
if no one has any hand at all, who is going to ques¬ 
tion it? 

This habit of throwing up hands prematurely 
leads to some of the most complicated questions 
submitted for decision. Here is a case in point:— 
A opens a Jack-pot; B, C, and D stay, and all 
draw cards. The opener bets the limit. B, C, and 

S D each in turn throws his hand into the dead- 
wood, and then they ask to see openers. A shows 
I a pair of queens, but he has six cards. This 
1 being a foul hand, B, C, and D claim that he 
' cannot win the pot; and they, having abandoned 
I their cards, cannot win it either. Then what be¬ 
comes of it ? 

I A wins it, because it is a fundamental principle 
of card laws that, when several players are guilty of 
contributory negligence, they lose the strict rights 
they would have had under the laws. In this case 

E 









50 


PRACTICAL POKER 


B, C, and D had no business to abandon their 
hands in a jack-pot until they had seen openers. 

It is true that A’s hand is foul; but it is better than 
no hand at all. Further, there is no evidence that 
it was foul before the draw; and there is no evidence i 
that the hands of B, C, and D were not also foul; , 
therefore A must be allowed to take the pot, pro¬ 
vided he can show openers. This may come as a 
surprise to some players, but it has been decided in , 
that way for more than thirty years, the first time 
being in Wilkes’ Spirit oj the Times, in 1872, when 
the editor says, in answer to a correspondent, 
“Who has a right to question the hand if all the 
others have abandoned their cards ? ” 

Another case which is very common is, aban¬ 
doning hands before the decision not to open has 
been announced by all the players. Six men were 
playing, and all passed except the dealer, who 
remarked, “No one can open it”; and, after a 
pause, “but I will.” Between the first part of the ' 
remark and the last, three men have thrown their 
hands into the deadwood, understanding, they said, 
that the dealer included himself in the remark that 
no one could open it. 

Here is another case of a different character:— - 
A opens a jack-pot and B stays. A stands pat and 
bets. B throws up his cards and asks to see open- ^ 
ers. A has mistaken his hand, having a bobtail 
straight only. B says he has a pair of queens, and t 
picks them off the top of the discard pile. But no i 
player is allowed to take cards into his hand again S 




FOSTER ON POKER 


51 


that have once been thrown on the deadwood, and 
B’s hand is abandoned. A, not having openers, 
has no claim to the pot; and it must stand as it is, 
with the money of A and B left in it, to be decided 
on the next deal. The conditions here are precisely 
the same as if A had discovered his false openers 
when no one came in against him, B losing his con¬ 
tribution to the pot through his own carelessness. 

Several of the laws have lately been changed, so 
as to cover cases in which a slight irregularity may 
be remedied without trespassing on the rights of 
the other players. For instance, if any player finds, 
before raising his cards, that he has more or less 
than five, he can either demand a new deal, or he 
can ask the dealer to draw a card if he has too 
many, or give him one from the pack if he has too 
few, provided no bet has been made. But if a bet 
has been made—that is, if any player has already 
anted—there must be a new deal. In this case it 
is evident that a misdeal has been made; but if no 
one has declared, it is easily remedied. 

Some players argue that the old law was good 
enough, and that a bet having been made does not 
alter the circumstances, because the player with too 
many cards cannot tell whether it would be to his 
advantage to let the dealer draw one, or whether 
it would be better to have a new deal. In some 
cases this is true; in others it is not; and in others, 
again, his choice might be influenced by his friend¬ 
ship for one of the players betting ahead of him, 








52 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Suppose six are playing. A has the age, B antes,, 
C raises, and D raises C again—all before F dis¬ 
covers that he has six cards. As F knows it is very 
improbable that he will hold a hand that will beat 
D, he may demand a new deal; but if D is a friend of 
F’s, F would naturally like to have the deal stand, 
as it costs him nothing either way, unless he gets a 
hand good enough to play, and it may be a good 
thing for D if he has a strong hand. But F is not 
allowed any choice in the matter under such circum¬ 
stances; and, a bet having been made, there must 
be a new deal. 

Suppose two players get their cards mixed, one 
taking a card belonging to another, so that one has 
four and the other six: it is not a misdeal, and 
neither can demand a new deal. If either player 
lifts any of his cards before discovering the error, 
that hand is foul. If one lifts and the other does 
not, the dealer must draw a card, face down, from 
the superfluous hand to make the other good. If 
neither player has lifted, they must ask the dealer 
to draw the card and set the hands right. In this 
case any previous betting makes no difference, as 
there was no misdeal, the confusion being caused 
by the players themselves. 

Sometimes, in dealing for the draw, the player’s 
card or cards will become mixed with the discards. 
In such cases the player must not attempt to pick 
it out for himself, but must call upon the dealer to 
do so, 





FOSTER ON POKER 


53 


Some players still insist that, if the age hand 
passes out, the privileges of the position should go 
to the next player. The age never passes. The 
privilege of having the last say in the betting is 
given as a compensation for being compelled to put 
up a blind, and no one who is not compelled to put 
up a blind can claim the privilege. If the one who 
has paid for it abandons it, it is just as dead as 
his hand. 

Some persons argue that the age should pass to 
the person who straddles, on the principle that if 
a man straddles he is risking more in the dark than 
the original blind, and that he should therefore 
have the privilege of the age. But the straddle is 
not compulsory, while the blind is. It is easy to 
imagine a case in which buying the age by strad¬ 
dling would be a great injustice to several players. 
Suppose that the amount of the blind is optional, 
and that one player habitually blinds half what the 
others do. The player fortunate enough to sit on 
the left of this man could straddle him every time, 
and still make the ante no higher than usual, se¬ 
curing to himself at the same time two ages in every 
round of deals. 

In calling, many persons, upon seeing the hand 
they call is better than theirs, throw their cards 
into the deadwood, with the remark, “That’s 
good,” or, “You win.” This is against the rules, 
but there is no penalty for it, although there should 
be, because it is a direct violation of the rights of 










54 


PRACTICAL POKER 


the other players at the table. The player who is I 
called has just as much right to see the caller’s hand 1 
as the caller has to see his. Not only that, all the I 
players at the table have a right to see both the I 
hands in the call, because that is their only protec- f 
tion against collusion. It was to expose this collu- | 
sion that the law was made. I 

Formerly, much more than now, it was a com- i 
mon practice for two players, with a secret under¬ 
standing between themselves, to stay in and raise 
one another when one of them had an exceptionally 
strong hand. This would compel any other player 
either to drop out or to bet a great deal more on his 
cards than they were worth. When none but the 
two confederates were left in, the strong hand would 
be called and shown, and the other, which usuall}^ 
contained nothing at all, would be thrown into the 
deadwood, with the remark, “That’s good.” Un- ^ 
der the rule that all hands in the call must be ^ 
shown to the whole table, this cheat would be at i 
once apparent. . ; 

It frequently happens that a player mis-calls his 
draw, asking for a wrong number of cards. If he ' 
amends this call before the next player has been 
helped, it is obvious that no harm has been done, f 
and the dealer must give him the correct number ’ 
of cards, provided the player has not picked up or 
seen any of those first given him. If the following | 
player has asked for cards, but not been helped * 
when the amended ask is made, he may insist that J 




FOSTER ON POKER 


55 


it is unfair for the first man to amend his call 
after having heard how many the following player 
wanted. This claim must be allowed, provided the 
following player did not ask before his turn (which 
so many players do), and also provided the first 
player had not discarded, because if the first player 
had discarded before asking, his hand shows for 
itself that his call was a slip of the tongue, and that 
no advantage was taken of the following player’s 
asking for a certain number. 

A great deal of trouble arises through players’ 
cards being snatched up and mixed with the dis¬ 
cards in gathering the pack for the next deal. 
Some of the old text-books on Poker recommend 
laying the hand down on the table in front of the 
player, because the table does not tremble, but the 
fingers do. Others recommend laying a chip on 
the cards, so as to prevent their being gathered 
up. The dealer is the only player at the table 
who need take this precaution, because all the other 
players have both hands at liberty to hold their 
cards. If a player’s hand, or any part of it, is 
blown away, turned over, picked up, or has other 
cards thrown on the top of it, or any such mis¬ 
fortune, he must suffer the consequences, as it is 
his business to protect his hand from any such 
contingencies. 

It frequently happens that an imperfect pack 
is brought into play, and is not discovered until 
several deals have been made with it. Strictly 






56 


PRACTICAL POKER 


speaking, an imperfect pack is one in which there 
are duplicate cards, missing cards, superfluous 
cards, torn cards, or cards so marked that they can 
be distinguished by the backs. The rule is, that 
upon the discovery of the imperfect pack all bets 
depending on that deal are void, but all previous 
deals and bets stand good. 

This law requires special modification in Poker, 
so as to prevent a player who is a loser from making 
a pack imperfect. It is obvious that the previous 
deals must be allowed to stand, because it cannot 
be absolutely proved that the pack was imperfect 
on the previous deal. Even in such a case as sev¬ 
eral deals having been played with a pinochle or 
Bezique pack, which must have been imperfect on 
the previous deals, the law still stands that the bets 
and deals must stand; but in this case it is simply 
to avoid confusion. 

To prevent the possibility of making a pack 
imperfect during the betting on the hands, as by 
withdrawing a card, or tearing or marking one, it is 
the rule that such trifling imperfections as torn or 
marked cards shall not invalidate the deal; but the - 
pack must be made perfect for the next deal. The ^ 
limit of time for claiming ah imperfect pack is 
usually stated as “during the deal”—that is, after 
the last card has been dealt for the draw it is too 
late to claim an imperfect pack for that deal, unless 
duplicate cards are drawn. The reasons for this 
are obvious. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


57 


I No player can win a pot on a hand of more or 
less than five cards, if there is any hand to dispute 
the pot with him—that is, unless all the other play¬ 
ers have abandoned their cards. There should be 
! no objection to a person holding four cards only, as 
he cannot possibly derive any advantage by play¬ 
ing with a short hand; but the laws of the game 
are against it, and no matter whose fault it is, a 
hand of more or less than five cards is foul. 

There is a great want of some generally accepted 
I rule for changing places at the table. The usual 
custom is, for the players to take their seats at 
random, and to remain in them until the end of 
the game. One does not like to get up and say, 
“I won’t sit here any longer,” because, if there is 
anything objectionable in the seat, why should it 
be forced on another player who is satisfied where 
he is? 

It cannot be denied that there is something in 
* seats, quite apart from any superstition, because 
I there are certain players whom one does not like 
to sit next to, on account of their habit of raising 
everything, or something of that kind; and it seems 
only right that there should be some method of 
changing seats without having to appear peculiar. 

, The rule that, if any player demands it, the cards 
' may be thrown round for seats at the expiration of 
a given time—such as every hour—seems to be an 
excellent one, and I have adopted it in the code. 
The determination of the seat to be occupied by a 









58 


PRACTICAL POKER 


new-comer is also necessary, as many players ob¬ 
ject to having a player push himself in between 
them and their neighbour. 

There is a great need of a small general penalty 
for a number of minor irregularities, such as refus¬ 
ing to show a called hand; and I should be glad to 
have the views of any reader as to what this should 
be, and for what it should be enforced. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE 

GAME 













DESCRIPTION OF THE 
GAME 


Poker is played with a full pack of fifty-two 
cards, the suits of which are of equal value and 
rank. The cards rank from the ace, king, queen, 
down to the deuce; but in order to form a sequence, 
the ace may be ranked below the deuce. When it 
is so used, it loses its rank as the highest card in the 
pack. In order to accommodate a larger number 
of players, an attempt was made some time ag6 to 
introduce packs of sixty cards, containing elevens 
and twelves; but they never became popular. 

Any number of persons from two to seven can 
play. When eight play, it is considered better for 
the dealer to take no cards than to make two tables 
of four players each. 

COUNTERS 

Poker chips, counters, or checks are generally 
used in place of money. These checks should be 
of uniform thickness, so as to stack accurately. 
The white checks are usually of the smallest value, 
the red next, and the blue next; and it is always best 
to have these various colours represent as nearly as 

6i 







62 


PRACTICAL POKER 


possible some piece of currency. In English money 
the white may be sixpence, the red a shilling, and 
the blue a half-a-crown, five shillings, or ten shil¬ 
lings. In America the white is usually ten cents, 
the red a quarter, the blue a dollar. It is a common 
practice to make the most valuable chip equal to 
the limit of the raise in small-Hmit games. 

BANKER 

These chips should be sold to the various play¬ 
ers by one of their number, who is elected to act 
as banker; who will also redeem checks returned 
when a player retires from the game. It is not 
usual for the banker to sell more counters than the 
game started with, unless additional players come 
in, those who lose their original stake being sup¬ 
posed to buy from those who are ahead. 

If there is no individual banker, each player 
starts with an equal amount, represented by chips; 
and upon retiring from the game, he must leave 
that amount on the table. If he has not enough 
chips to do so, he must buy from those who have 
chips to sell. If he has more than he started with, 
those who have not their original capital must buy 
from him. At the end of the game, all accounts 
can be balanced in this manner without the inter¬ 
vention of an individual banker. In clubs, count¬ 
ers may be bought and sold by an attendant, quite 
independently of the players. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


63 


PLAYERS 

The positions occupied at the table are not of 
much importance; but the first dealer must be de¬ 
cided upon by lot. The simplest manner of doing 
this is for any person to shufSe the pack, and then 
deal off the cards, one at a time, to each player in 
turn until a jack appears. The one to whom this 
card falls is the first dealer. This method is much 
simpler than cutting or drawing cards, and is now 
almost universally adopted. Cards may be thrown 
round for the other seats, if any player demands it; 
and a complete change of position may be drawn 
for every hour, if demanded. {See Laws 3 to 6.) 

BETTING LIMITS 

Before play begins, there are three principal 
! bets, the amount or limit of which must be agreed 
to. These are:— 

; The blind. 

The ante in jack-pots, 
h: The raise, or limit. 

The blind is always half the amount of the ante 
in an ordinary pool, but a special ante is some- 
‘ || times agreed on for jack-pots. 

I The limit is not the limit of any one bet, but the 
limit by which any previous bet may be raised, 
h' If A bets th^limit, and B raises him the limit, it is 
1 obvious that B has put up twice the amount of the 





64 


PRACTICAL POKER 


betting limit, and that any player calling both A s 
and B would have to do the same. Suppose C * 
raised B again, C would be putting up three times 
the betting limit, and D would have to put up the I 
same amount to call. I 

In the old days, the raise, or limit, was always I 
fifty or a hundred times the amount of the ante; 1 
but the constant tendency of modern Poker is to 
make the proportion less and less. Penny ante ' 
and shilling limit, sixpence ante and half-crown ' 
limit, or shilling ante and two-and-six to ten-shil¬ 
ling limit, is now the usual game. In America ten- 
cent blind, call twenty-cent ante, dollar limit; or 
fifty-cent ante, two-and-a-half limit, are the most 
popular. The theory is, to make every pot worth " 
playing for. When the ante was ten cents and the 
limit ten dollars, there was nothing to play for 
unless two good hands were opposed. 

Special arrangements for regulating the raises, 
such as Progressive Poker and table stakes, will 
be dealt with later.. 

THE BLIND 

Before the cards are dealt, the player imme- j 
diately on the dealer’s left must deposit one white 
chip in the pool as a blind. This blind determines . 
the value of the ante, which is always twice as much 
as the bhnd. In some games it is at the discretion 
of the player to increase the amount \)f blind, but: 
the practice is not to be recommended. . . 




FOSTER ON POKER 


65 


The player who puts up the blind is known as the 
eldest hand, or “age,” sometimes corrupted into 
“edge.” The player on the dealer’s right is the 
“pone.” 


THE DEAL 

After the cards have been properly shuffled, they 
must be presented to the pone to be cut. He can 
either cut them or tap them with his knuckles, 
or tell the dealer to “run them,” which means to 
run them off without cutting. If the pone de¬ 
clines to cut the cards, no other player can insist 
on doing so. 

Beginning on his left hand, the dealer distributes 
the cards, face down, one at a time in rotation, 
■ until each player, including himself, has received 
five. These are known as the “ original ” hands. 

i ' THE STRADDLE 

^ During the deal, or at least before seeing any 
of his cards, the player sitting immediately on the 
left of the age may straddle the blind, if he chooses, 
by putting up double the amount. The effect of 
! this will be to double the usual amount of the 
ante, and also to make the man on the left of the 
I straddler the first to declare whether or not he 
i will play. 

i If the blind is straddled, the player next to the 
left of the straddler can straddle again, if he choose, 
and then the man on his left can straddle him, and 
i-’ 








66 


PRACTICAL POKER 


so on, until the limit of straddling is reached; but 
the total amount of the straddle must never exceed 
half of the betting limit, because the ante must be 
double the amount of the last straddle, and the 
ante itself can never be greater than the “limit” 
agreed upon at the beginning of the game. 

Should any player in his turn refuse to straddle, 
that prevents any player on his left from so doing; 
so that if the man next the age does not start it, 
no one can. 


THE ANTE 

The player immediately to the left of the age is 
known as the first bettor, or the man “under the 
gun.” If he did not straddle, he must make the 
first declaration as to whether or not he will play. 
If he has straddled, the man on his left, or on the 
left of the last straddler, must declare. 

After spreading his cards, face downwards, on 
the table; to be sure that he has neither more nor 
less than five, he takes them up and examines 
them. If he does not wish to play, he says, “I 
pass,” and throws his cards, face downwards, in 
the centre of the table, or opposite the next dealer. 
If he wishes to play his hand, or to draw cards to 
improve it, he must deposit in the pool double the 
amount of the blind or last straddle, if any. This 
is the ante. 

Any following player, wishing to come in, must 
put up an equal amount for the ante, and the age 



FOSTER ON POKER 


67 


must put up enough to make his blind equal to 
the ante. If there have been any straddles, the 
straddlers must add enough to make up the ante. 
Suppose the age put up a white check blind, 

■ straddled by B and again by C. The ante, in such 
a case, would be eight chips. If D put up the ante, 
and the age had the next say, he would have to put 
in seven more, B would have to put in six more, 
and C would have to put in four more. Unless 
he has been straddled, the age always has the 
last say as to whether or not he will make good 
: his ante. If there is a straddle, the last straddler 
; has the last say. Either the age or any straddler 
I can decline to make good the ante if he pleases; 

; but the blind or straddle already put up remains 
in the pool. 

I The blind is a bet made before seeing anything, 

I and the straddle is simply an increased blind. 

The ante is a bet made after seeing the original 
/ hand, but before the draw. 

RAISING THE ANTE 

Any player, when putting up or making good 
his ante, can raise it by any amount within the 
betting limit. Such a raise will compel any follow¬ 
ing player to ante a similar amount to throw up 
his cards. If one or more players have already 
put up the ante when it is raised, they must “see” 
the raise or drop out of the pool. If one player 






68 


PRACTICAL POKER 


raises the ante, any following player may raise 
him again, any amount within the limit. Suppose 
A has the age, B antes, C antes, D raises the 
ante, and E sees both ante and raise: A, B, and C 
must also see the raise, or drop out. 

When a player simply meets the raise with¬ 
out raising in his turn, he is said to “see” it. 
“Calling” usually refers to the betting on the com¬ 
plete hands after the draw. 

The betting rule, simply stated, is, that when 
a player is called upon to ante, or to meet the 
raise of another player, he can do one of three 
things—see it, raise it, or drop out. He cannot 
raise unless it is his turn to meet or raise some 
other player; that is, he cannot raise his own bet 
if no one raised him after he made it. 

Should any player refuse to meet a raise, he 
must drop out and throw up his cards. If one 
player raises and no other player will see the 
raise, each in turn throwing up his cards, it is 
obvious that there will be no one to dispute the 
pool, and the player whose last raise was not 
seen will take the pot without showing his hand; 
and the cards will be gathered for the next deal. 

When two or more players remain in, each 
having an equal amount in the pool, the antes 
are said to be “made good,” and the players 
are ready to draw cards. The effect of any 
straddling entirely ceases with the making good 
of the antes. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


69 


THE DRAW 

In dealing for the draw, after the antes are 
all up, the pack must not be cut or shuffled, but 
the cards must be given from the top, just as if 
it were a continuation of the deal before the draw. 

The age has the first say as to how many cards 
he will take, and after him each man in turn to 
the left who is still in the pool. 

A player can either stand “pat” on his original 
hand, or he can draw any number of cards from 
one to five, first discarding from his original hand 
the cards he does not want. Each player in turn 
asks the dealer for the number of cards he wants, 
and the dealer gives them to him from the top 
of the pack. Each man must receive the num¬ 
ber of cards he asks for before the next man is 
helped. The dealer discards and helps himself in 
his proper turn, announcing how many he tak^s; 
and then the hands are known as “complete” 
hands, and are ready for the betting. 

BETTING UP THE HANDS 

Whether the blind was straddled or not, the 
first man to the left of the age who still holds 
cards must make the first bet. If the age has 
passed out by declining to make good the ante, 
that makes no difference, as the privilege of having 
the last say as to betting on the hand passes out 
with him. 






70 


PRACTICAL POKER 


If the player whose turn it is to bet will not bet, 
he must throw his cards into the deadwood with 
the previous discards, and the next man to his left 
must bet, or pass out in turn. If all but one pass 
out in this manner, the last to say, having no 
opponents to dispute the pool with him, takes the 
pot without showing his hand. If the age is in 
and no one bets, the age takes the pool. If the 
age has passed out, the player nearest on his right 
will be the lucky man. 

If any player makes a bet, the next player on his 
left must either ‘‘call” it by putting up an equal 
amount, or drop out. He has also the privilege - 
of raising it. If he calls, any other player to the 
left will have to do the same, or raise, or drop 
out. If anyone raises the first bet, each player in 
turn to the left will have to call both the original 
bet and the raise, or raise again, or drop out. 
When it comes round to the one who has been 
raised, he will have to call the raise, or lay down 
his cards. He has, of course, the privilege of rais¬ 
ing again in his turn. If no one will call the last 
raise, the player making it takes the pool without 
showing his hand. 

If the bet is called and not raised, all those in 
the call—that is, all those who have bet an equal 
amount—show their hands to the board, and the 
best Poker hand takes the pot. The cards are 
then gathered up and shuffled for the next deal, 
the player who was the age in the last hand being 
the dealer in the next. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


71 


POKER HANDS 


When two or more players show their cards in 
order to decide which of them gets the pool, the 
one with the most valuable combination wins. 

There are ten different classes of “hands” at 
Poker, which out-rank one another in the order 
shown by the following diagrams, beginning with 
the lowest, which is a hand without a pair. 

The figures underneath show the odds against 
such a hand being held by any player before the 
draw—that is, in his original hand. A compari¬ 
son of these figures will be the best guide for the 
novice who wishes to learn the comparative value 
of the various hands, and the probability of their 
being held. 

If the odds are 254 to i against a certain hand 
being dealt to any player, the hand must be a 
much better one than a hand which the odds are 
only 20 to I against, and at the same time the 
better hand must be much more uncommon. This 
knowledge of the probability of hands of a certain 
strength being out against him, will soon teach the 
novice the probable value of his own cards. 

For instance: if it is 46 to i against any player 
holding three of a kind originally, and there are five 
in the game, it is one-fifth of those odds, or 9 to i, 
that no one at the table has three of a kind before 
the draw. 







72 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Asterisks are placed over the useless cards ir. 
each of the examples. These cards add nothing to 
the value of the hand, and may be discarded before 
the draw. 



Five cards of vari¬ 
ous suits without a 
pair, and not in se¬ 
quence. 


One Pair .— Two 
cards of the same 
denomination, and 
three useless cards. 



20 to 1. 


Two Pairs .—Two 
cards of the same 
denomination, two of 
another denomina¬ 
tion, and one useless 
card. 



Threes .—Three 
cards of the same 
denomination, and 
two useless cards. 


46 to 1 . 






FOSTER ON POKER 


73 



Straight .—All five 
cards in sequence, 
but of different 
suits. 



508 to 1. 


Flush .—All five 
cards of the same 
suit, but not in se¬ 
quence. 



Full Hand .— 
Three cards of the 
same denomination, 
and two of another 
denomination. No 
useless cards. 

Fours. — Four 
cards of one de¬ 
nomination, and one 
useless card. 



Straight Flush .— 
Five cards of the 
same suit, all in 
sequence with one 
another. 









74 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Royal Flush .—A 
straight flush which 
is ace high. 

In addition to these hands, which are every¬ 
where recognised as the standard, there are a few 
combinations which are played in certain localities 
as a matter of custom, and in others by agreement. 
These are:— 




423 to 1 . 


A Blaze .—Five 
court cards; usually 
played to beat two 
pairs, and lose to 
three of a kind. 

A Tiger .—Must be 
seven high and deuce 
low, without a pair, 
sequence, or flush. j 
When played, beats 
a straight and loses 
to a flush. 

A Skip, or Dutch 
Straight .— A se- j 

quence of alternate j 

cards of various suits. 
When played, it beats 
two pairs and a blaze. 







fost^:r on poker 


75 


Round - the - Cor¬ 
ner .—A straight in 
which the ace con¬ 
nects the top and 
bottom of the suits. 
When played, it out- 
ranks the lowest 
possible straight. 

That these extra hands have been assigned their 
rank by guess-work, and not by experience or cal¬ 
culation, is evident from the fact that none of them 
is appreciated, and the players who adopt them 
must be absolutely blind to their true value. 

The rank of the standard hands was probably 
determined by long experience of the relative 
frequency of their appearance, which has since been 
confirmed by mathematical calculation. When 
straights were first introduced, about 1870, there 
was a great deal of discussion as to whether they 
should beat two pairs or threes, which shows that 
the observation of the players was not accurate 
enough to determine their rank. Calculation final¬ 
ly assigned them their proper place. 

In the case of the extra hands—blazes, tigers, 
skips, and round-the-corners—calculation shows 
that they are all ranked entirely too low. 

A skip is almost twice as*difficult to get as any 
other straight, the exact odds against it being 423 
to I, while the odds against an ordinary straight are 
254 to I only. 



848 to 1. 








76 


PRACTICAL POKER 


A round-the-corner is still more difficult to get, 
because there are so few of them; the odds against 
them being 848 to i, they should beat a full hand. 

A tiger is harder to get than a pat flush, the 
exact odds against it being 636 to i; while the 
odds against the flush are 508 to i only. 

The blaze, which is ranked the lowest by those 
who play these hands, should be the highest, as it 
is the most uncommon, on account of the condi¬ 
tion that it must be all court cards—that is, kings, 
queens, and jacks; for the ace is not a court card. 
The odds against a blaze are 3,008 to i, which 
would make it better than a full hand. 

In a game in which all these hands were played, 
the proper rank of the various combinations or 
classes of hands would be:— 


One Pair. 


1 

Two Pairs. 

20 


I 

Three of a Kind. 

45 

€€ 

I 

Sequence or Straight. 

254 

€t 

I 

Skip or Dutch Straight. 

423 

tt 

I 

Flush. 


i( 

I 

Tiger (big or little dog). 

636 

it 

I 

Full Hand. 

693 

it 

I 

Round-the-corner Straight.. .. 

848 

it 

I 

Blaze . 

... 3,008 

it 

I 

Four of a Kind. 

... 4,164 

it 

I 

Straight Flush. 

.... 64,973 


I 

Royal Flush. 

• • - 649^739 

it 

I 


If the various Poker combinations (pairs, two 
pairs, triplets, etc.) are considered as classes of 
hands, the rank of the individual cards is evidently 
















FOSTER ON POKER 


77 


necessary to decide between competing hands in the 
same class, otherwise any player with a pair would 
have as good a hand as any other player with a 
pair. 

By giving the cards a certain rank, we practically 
agree that a pair of tens shall beat a pair of nines, 
and that three sevens shall beat three fours; and 
we establish a standard of comparison or degree. 
This standard is artificial, it is true, because if we 
reverse the order (as is done in the black suits in 
Spoil-five), making a six beat a seven, the game of 
Poker would still be the same so far as the difficulty 
of getting hands of a certain class was concerned, 
and three of a kind would still beat two pairs. 

The odds against any player getting a pair dealt 
to him are 13 to 10. These are the odds against 
any pair, and he is just as likely to get a pair of 
aces as a pair of treys. It is the rank assigned to 
the individual cards that makes the pair of aces the 
better hand, and not any greater difficulty in getting 
aces instead of treys. 

This rank of the cards must decide all questions 
of ties, because the suits have no rank at Poker, and 
a pair of red aces is no better than a pair of black 
I . ones; a flush in hearts is no better than a flush in 
clubs. When two hands of the same class are 
shown for the pool, the rank of the cards deter- 
I mines the winner. 

j In pairs, the pair of higher rank wins. If the 
\ pairs are alike, the highest outside card wins. If 
I that is still a tie, the next card, and so on. If all 








78 


PRACTICAL POKER 


the cards are alike in each hand, the players divide ! 
the pool. I 

In two pairs, the higher pair wins, regardless of 1 
the rank of the second pair in the same hand. I 
Queens up will beat jacks up, even if the pair with 
the queens are only deuces, while the pair with the 
jacks are tens. If the higher pairs tie, the second 
pair must decide; tens and eights will beat tens 
and sixes. If both pairs tie, the outside card must 
decide; and if that is also a tie, the hands divide 
the pool. 

There can be no tie in showing three of a kind, 
and the highest ranking triplet wins, three sixes 
beating three fives, regardless of the outside cards, i 
In straights, the card at the top of the sequence 
determines its value. If an ace is used at the ; 
bottom of a straight, the straight is only five high, 
and a six-high straight will beat it. ■■■' 

In flushes, the highest card wins. If that is ^ 
a tie, the next card; and so on, until a card is 
found in one hand higher than in the other. If ^ 
two flushes are shown—one ace, king, jack, eight,'f 
three; and the other ace, king, jack, six, thr ee M 
the first wins, because the eight is higher than the * 
six. If all the cards are a tie, the hands divide S 
the pool. H 

In full hands, the triplet decides, irrespective of ■ 
the rank of the accompanying pair. Three fives 
and a pair of deuces will beat three fours and a jj 
pair of aces. C 

In straight flushes, the top card of the sequence ■ 




FOSTER ON POKER 


79 


decides, so that a straight flush, eight, seven, 
six, five, four, will beat a straight flush, five, 
four, three, two, ace. Many persons think that, 
in such a double combination, the hand with 
the ace in it should win, because the flush by 
itself would be ace high. But if the ace is ranked 
below the deuce in order to make one part of the 
hand, it cannot be ranked differently to make 
another part. That would be almost like allow¬ 
ing a player to hold six cards. 

While it is true that the rank of Poker hands 
is based upon scientific principles, those most diffi¬ 
cult to get being the most valuable, and that the 
relative difficulty of getting them can be mathe¬ 
matically demonstrated, it is not true that each 
individual hand holds its proper rank, because 
many hands which are very difficult to get are 
beaten in the show-down by hands which are 
comparatively easy to get. 

A few examples of this curious anomaly (which 
cannot, however, be remedied without upsetting 
the whole game, and unnecessarily complicating 
it) will make the matter clear. Let us suppose 
two hands to be shown, neither containing a pair, 
flush, or sequence, the one ace high and the other 
seven high. The ace-high hand wins, and every¬ 
one takes it as quite natural that it should; yet it 
can be demonstrated that the seven-high hand 
is more difficult to get than a pat flush. No one 
questions that ace-high is better than jack high, 
yet one holds ace high four times as often as jack 






8 o 


PRACTICAL POKER 


high. The reason is simple: jack high must be 
made from suits of ten cards only, while the ace- 
high hand has suits of thirteen to draw upon; and 
the permutation of these two numbers makes the 
difference in the probability of holding the hands. 

The same is true of flushes; and when a ten- 
high flush lets an ace-high flush take the pot, 
the holder of the better hand—or at least the 
one that is harder to get—is really allowing an in¬ 
ferior hand to win the money. Every time that 
two flushes are in a call, the best hand, judged by 
the difficulty of getting it, loses. 

When we come to two pairs, we find the ratio 
of probability and value still further inverted. A 
player will hold aces up—that is, aces and another 
pair inferior to aces—twelve times as often as he 
will hold threes up. The reason is obvious: 
with aces up he can hold any one of twelve differ¬ 
ent inferior pairs; with the treys he can hold only 
one inferior pair, deuces. 

If the rank of the individual hands in each 
class were determined upon the same mathemati¬ 
cal principles that govern the classes themselves, 
always giving the superior value to the hand which 
was the most difficult to obtain, in all the hands 
belonging to the class known as two pairs it should 
be the rule that the lower the rank of the higher 
pair the better the hand would be. At present, 
every time two pairs eights up call two pairs queens 
up, the better hand does not win the money. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


8i 


JACK-POTS 


The jack-pot is an incident—an interruption to 
the regular course of the game which has been 
described. It differs from the ordinary pool in two 
ways:— 

{a) Instead of a blind put up by the age, and a 
^ voluntary ante put up by those who are willing to 
play their hands after they have seen them, each 
1 player is obliged to ante an equal amount in a 
jack-pot, before the cards are dealt. 

(6) Instead of being allowed to come into the 
pool on anything or nothing, at least one of the 
players must have a hand of a certain value dealt 
1 to him before there can be any betting or drawing 
i cards. This hand is generally defined as “jacks 
I or better”—that is, a pair of jacks, or some hand 
j which is better than a pair of jacks. Any player 
\ holding such a hand may bet upon it by putting 
into the pool any amount he pleases within the 
betting limit. This is called “opening” the pot. 
He is not obliged to open, no matter how good a 
I hand he has; but if any player does open, all 

( restrictions are immediately removed, and each 
player in turn to the left of the opener, round to 
the player on his right hand, can “come in,” 
regardless of what he holds, provided he sees the 
amount for which the pot is opened. 






82 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Jack-pots may arise in two ways: they may be 
formed naturally from the circumstances of the 
play, or they may be forced by the introduction 
of some artificial arrangement. All forced jacks 
must be a matter of agreement among the players. 

The natural jack arises in two ways. If no one 
will ante in an ordinary pool, the age takes down 
his blind, and every player at the table puts up the 
amount of the ante agreed upon for jacks. This 
amount may be the same as the usual ante, or it 
may be more. It is usually at least double. The ' 
player who put up the blind on the previous deal 
becomes the dealer in the jack-pot. 

Natural jacks are also formed when one of the 
hands shown in a call is above a certain value. This 
value must be agreed upon at the beginning of the 
game, otherwise a full hand is the usual standard; j 
but some call for jack-pots on flushes or straights. ^ 
If the hand is not called, no notice is taken of it. 

It is only when the hand is called by another hand, I 

and shown for the purpose of deciding the pool, I 

that a jack-pot must follow on the next deal. ! 

When four of a kind or a straight flush is shown > 
in a call, there must be a round of jacks—that is, j 

a jack-pot for each player at the table. This is i 

known as a “whangdoodle.” 

It is sometimes insisted that a jack-pot should 
follow a misdeal; but such a practice is not to 
be recommended, as it makes it possible for any 
player to make a jack at his pleasure. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


83 


Forced jacks are made in various ways. The 
most common is to place a “buck” in the first 
pool played for. The buck may be a penknife, 
or any article of that kind, and it is taken down 
with the chips by whoever wins the pool. When 
it comes round to this player’s turn to deal, it is a 
jack-pot, and he must place the buck in the pool 
with his ante, to be won, taken down, and indicate 
the advent of another jack in the same way, as long 
as the game lasts. This device makes a great 
many jacks, usually two in each round of deals. 

When only one player antes to play against the 
blind, it is sometimes declared a forced jack. If 
the blind has been straddled, or if the single player 
coming in has raised the ante, that bars the jack, 
and the player wins the blind if the age will not 
make good. 

In some places the making of a forced jack, 
when only one player antes, rests with the age. 
If the age wishes to play his hand, he can do so; 
otherwise he must return the ante to the player 
who came in, and must ante for both himself and 
that player in the following jack. When this 
custom prevails, the last player to say—that is, 
the dealer—may announce that he will pass, pro¬ 
vided the age will make it a jack. For instance: 
A blinds in a five-hand game. B and C pass, 
D antes, and E says, “I pass for a jack.” That 
is, if the blind agrees to make it a jack, E will not 
come in; otherwise E will ante, and draw cards. 






84 


PRACTICAL POKER 


It is sometimes made a jack-pot when no one 
draws cards; or, more correctly speaking, when 
one player raises out all the others before the 
draw. Suppose A blinds, B and C come in, and 
D raises the limit, which no one will see. D wins 
the antes, but the next pot is a jack. 

By agreement among the players, the game may 
be all jack-pots. When all jacks are played, it is 
usual to double the ante when a hand of a certain 
value has been shown in the previous pool. 

The betting limit is sometimes doubled in 
whang-doodles; but all such matters must be 
agreed on. 

In what are known as “progressive jacks,” if 
the pot is not opened on the first deal, it will take 
queens or better to open on the next, kings or 
better on the third, and so on up to aces, and then 
down again to jacks. Fortunately, this pro¬ 
gression is dying out. It is very confusing, and 
frequently leads to a player’s inadvertently open¬ 
ing on queens when he should have had kings; or 
something of that kind. 

There is no such thing as the straddle in a jack¬ 
pot, because there is no blind, and therefore no age. 

The first man to the left of the dealer has the 
“say” as to whether or not he can open. If he 
opens, he must put up some amount as a bet on 
his hand for the others to see or pass. If the first 
man to say cannot or will not open, the next man 
on his left has the say, and so on round the table 
until it comes to the dealer. 





FOSTER ON POKER 


85 


If a player has passed once, declining to open, 
that does not prevent his coming in if someone 
else opens. Suppose A has the first say, and 
passes; B, C, and D also pass. E opens for the 
limit. A, B, C, and D can each come in in turn, 
if they are willing to see the amount put up by E. 

No one is allowed a second chance to open the 
pot. If all pass the first round, the cards must be 
thrown up, and there must be a new deal, the deal 
passing in regular rotation to the left. In whang- 
doodles, if the pot is not opened, the same dealer 
deals again, and continues to deal until the pot 
is opened. This is called “dealing off his jack,’’ 
and ensures the same number of jack-pots as 
there are players. 

When the pot is not opened, instead of putting 
up another ante for the second deal, it is usual for 
each player to “fatten” by adding one white chip 
to the pool. This fattening process is continued 
for each succeeding deal in which no one opens. 
As fattening gives rise to frequent disputes as to 
“who is shy” it is often the rule that the first ante 
shall be the only one. 

When the pot is opened, any player coming in 
against the opener has the privilege of raising the 
bet when he comes in; and this will compel any 
following player to see both the amount opened 
for and the raise, or to drop out. If the player 
who opened wishes to stay, he must see the raise, 
with the privilege of raising again in turn, of 
course. If the opener is raised, and will not see 







86 


PRACTICAL POKER 


the raise, he must show his whole hand to the 
table, disclosing what he opened on, and then 
withdraw from the pool. 

If a player opens and no one comes in against 
him, he shows his five cards to the board; and if he 
has legitimate openers, he takes the pool. 

If two or more stay in a pool after it has been 
opened, each putting up equal amounts, they are 
then at liberty to draw cards, the player nearest on 
the left of the dealer being helped first, no matter 
who opened. 

If the opener stays in the pool and draws cards, 
he must keep his openers. He is Jiot allowed to 
“split” them, to try for a flush or a straight, unless 
it has been agreed that a pot may be opened on a 
four-card flush or straight, in which case the bob- 
tail itself is an opener, and it does not matter 
whether the opener has a pair of jacks or better 
with it or not. The reasons for this rule against 
splitting openers have been given at length in the 
chapter on “Disputed Rules.” Those who have 
come in against the opener, being under no restric¬ 
tions, may draw to anything they please. 

After the draw, the first bet must be made by 
the player who opened the pot, no matter where he 
sits. If he declines to bet, he must show what he 
opened the pot on before he abandons his hand. 
After the draw, he need not show his entire hand, 
but only openers If the opener has been raised 
out before the draw, the first bet must be made by 
the player on the left of the opener. In either 



FOSTER ON POKER 


87 


case the betting proceeds as'in an ordinary pool; 
but before the pot is taken down the openers 
must be shown to the board. Suppose the opener 
is still in the pool, but is raised out after the 
draw. Before he abandons his hand he must show 
openers. 

If a player opens a jack without the cards to 
justify it, and discovers the mistake before he draws 
cards, his hand is dead, and he forfeits whatever 
amounts he may have put into the pool. If no 
one has come into the pool before the error is 
announced, but there are still some to declare, the 
game proceeds as if nothing had happened, except 
that the pool is richer by the amount contributed 
Ij by the false opener, any of the other players who 
ll can open it being at liberty to do so. 

I lf any one has come in against the false openers, 
the pot must be played for precisely as if it had 
been legitimately opened. The possibility of such 
an occurrence shows the necessity for each player 
to preserve his cards, even when he passes, until 
he is sure about the legitimacy of the openers. 
Suppose A opens; B, C, and D pass; E comes in, 
and then A announces that he made a mistake 
about having openers. If B, C, and D have thrown 
up their cards because they would not play against 
a hand declared to be jacks or better, they cannot 
take them back again now that it is possible the 
only hand against them (E’s) may be nothing but 
a small pair. 

If the false opener does not discover his mistake 







88 


PRACTICAL POKER 


until he has drawn cards, he not only loses all his 
interest in that pool, but he is penalised by being 
compelled to ante for all the other players, includ¬ 
ing himself, for another jack-pot. This is called 
“giving them a free ride.” If the false opener has 
not drawn cards, but stood pat, he is not subject to 
the second penalty of the free ride. 

THE KITTY 

It is a common practice to take a chip for the 
“kitty” out of every pool in which a hand above 
a certain value is shown. This accumulation of 
chips must be kept in some receptacle provided for 
the purpose, and should be under the care of one 
man, usually the banker for the evening. Some 
Poker tables have a small slot in the centre, down 
which the chips for the kitty may be dropped. In 
clubs the kitty may be used to pay for the cards 
or for refreshments. In private games it may be 
devoted to paying for the weekly supper. When 
the amount exceeds the purpose for which it is in¬ 
tended, the surplus may be used up in giving the 
players a free ride for a jack-pot. 

Three of a kind is usually the minimum hand 
for taking out for the kitty, but in some gambling 
houses there is a regular scale for hands of differ¬ 
ent values—one chip for two pairs, two for triplets 
or straights, and three for flushes or fulls. The 
amount in the kitty must be accounted for by the 
banker in settling up at the end of the game. 





FOSTER ON POKER 


89 


PROGRESSIVE LIMITS 

It is sometimes agreed that, instead of fixing 
any limit for the amount by which any bet may be 
raised, it shall be at the option of any player seeing 
a bet to raise it by doubling the amount already 
bet, the first bet only being limited. 

Suppose A has bet the limit—let us say a blue 
check, as a starter after the draw. B can either 
call this blue check or bet two blues, which is 
doubling. If B doubles, A can bet four blues if he 
likes, which is double the amount of B’s bet; and 
B in turn can bet ten, which is double the whole 
amount A has bet. This will allow A to bet twenty- 
four, double the total amount that B has put up. 

This is sometimes varied by making each bet 
twice the amount of the last one only: i, 2, 4, 8, 
16 being the amounts; and again, by allowing the 
player to include the ante in the amount doubled. 

Even in this game there must be a limit, and in 
most games it is arranged so as to stop at the sixth 
or eighth raise. Some players consider this the 
l^est of all the betting arrangements so far pro¬ 
posed. It is very popular in England, but is little 
known in America. 

The original amount for which a jack-pot may 
be opened is also controlled by the amount of the 
antes in the pot, in some cases. Whether this shall 
be equal to all the antes, or one-half, or double, 
must be a matter of local custom or agreement. 





90 


PRACTICAL POKER 


VARIETIES OF POKER 


There are six well-known varieties of the game 
of Poker, some depending on a difference in the 
arrangements for the betting, and others introduc¬ 
ing entirely different methods of play. 

FREEZE OUT 

At the beginning of the game each player starts 
with an equal number of counters, the individual 
value of which does not matter, the game being for 
a fixed sweepstake, contributed to by each player. 
Suppose four play for a sovereign, or five dollars a 
corner; they may take 20 counters each, or 25, or 
50, as may be agreed upon. 

The blind, ante, straddle, raise, and bet are pre¬ 
cisely the same as in the ordinary game; but the 
moment any player loses his last counter, he is 
“frozen out,” and must retire from the game. 
The others continue to play until only one remains, 
and this survivor wins all the stakes bet upon the 
result. 

If a player has not enough chips to call any 
bet, he may “call a sight” for what chips he has 
left; and if he has the best hand, he wins that 
number of chips from those who bet against him. 

This is a good game for two or three players, 
but for a large number it is open to the objection 




FOSTER ON POKER 


91 


that the first players frozen out sometimes have to 
wait a long time before they can get into the game 
again. When two play, it makes a good substitute 
for agreeing to quit at a certain hour, as the game 
is over when one loses all his chips. 

TABLE STAKES 

Table stakes is a compromise between the mod¬ 
ern game of small limits and the old-fashioned 
game, in which a player could bet any amount he 
chose, provided he could put it on the table in 
som^negotiable form. 

At the start, each player can put on the table 
in front of him any amount he pleases, either in 
cash or in its equivalent in chips, or both. This 
amount is his stake, and he is not allowed to in¬ 
crease or diminish it between the time he looks at 
his cards and the decision of the pool. Before or 
during the deal he may add to his stake, dispose of 
some of his chips to other players, or put some of 
his capital in his pocket. It may be agreed that 
a buck placed among a player’s chips shall mean, 
‘T have as much on the table as any other player.” 

Under no circumstances can one player borrow 
from another during the play of a hand; neither 
can he owe anything to the pool. If he has any¬ 
thing in front of him, he can bet that amount and 
no more. The best players consider it wise to keep 
as much in front of them as any other player at 
the table shows. 





92 


PRACTICAL POKER 


One of the peculiarities of table stakes, and also 
of freeze out, is “calling for a sight.” If A makes 
a bet which B wishes to call, but has not money 
enough, B can call a sight for what money he has 
on the table. This does not prevent A’s bet stand¬ 
ing for its full amount against any other player 
who may have chips enough to call it. 

An example will make this clear:—A bets ten 
blue chips, and B has only eight in front of him, 
but wishes to call A’s hand. B says, “I call a 
sight for eight,” putting them up. A then separates 
two blue chips, laying them aside from the pool for 
any other player to call. Suppose C not only calls 
A’s ten, but raises him ten; eight of C’s chips go 
into the pool with B’s, the other twelve remaining 
outside for A to see. Suppose A refuses to call 
C. B shows his hand, and if it is better than 
C’s he takes the first part of the pool; but C wins 
the two extra blues that A put up. If C has the 
best hand, of course he wins everything. Suppose 
that, when the hands are shown, A finds that, 
though B can beat C, A could have beaten both 
of them. Some persons insist that, as B only 
called A, A should win from B the amount of 
the sight bet. But when A refused to call C, he 
practically acknowledged that C had the better 
hand; and if B can beat this hand, which was 
supposed to be better than A’s, A must be taken 
as giving in to B also. A was raised out, and when 
he refused to call he lost his right to any part of 
the pool. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


93 


MISTIGRIS 

Sometimes the joker is added to the pack, and 
the player to whom it is dealt, either before or in 
the draw, may call it anything he pleases. The 
joker and a pair of kings may be called three kings; 
four hearts and the joker may be called a flush, or 
the joker may be used to fill out a straight. Four 
of a kind and a joker will beat a royal flush, because 
it is really five of a kind. In case of ties in the 
denomination of the cards, the hand with the joker 
in it wins. A queen and a joker will beat a pair of 
queens. A flush, joker high, will beat one ace 
high. The joker with two pairs makes a triplet 
of the higher pair, so that it is a full hand. 

This form of the game is more common in 
England than in America. It makes the hands 
lively, and improves them on the average; but the 
introduction of such a card as the joker upsets all 
the calculations of probability to which old players 
are accustomed, and rapidly spoils them for the 
regular game. 

It is usual to make two pairs rank below three 
of a kind; but with the joker, three of a kind is 
easier to get than two pairs, and the rank of these 
two hands should be reversed. 

STRAIGHT POKER 

This is often called “Bluff,” because bluffing 
is the principal element of success. The great 
difference between ^straight Poker and draw Poker 




94 


PRACTICAL POKER 


is, that there is no draw to improve the hand in 
Bluff. 

There being no age, the deal is of no importance, 
and anyone can begin. A buck of some kind 
must be provided, such as a penknife, which is 
used to mark the player who must ante. The 
dealer of the first hand puts up the ante for all 
the players at the table, and then passes the buck 
to the player on his left, who must ante for the 
next deal. 

The ante never varies in amount, and it and 
the betting limit, or raise, must be agreed upon 
before play begins. 

Instead of the deal passing to the left, the winner 
of each pool deals for the next one. 

After the cards are dealt, each player, begin¬ 
ning on the dealer’s left, may either bet or pass. 
If all the players pass, the holder of the buck 
antes, making it a double pool, and passes the 
buck to his left. The deal passes to the left when 
no one has made a bet on the previous deal. 

If any player makes a bet, each player in turn 
to his left must either see it, raise it, or pass out. 
Those on the right of the first bettor, who have 
passed before any bet was made, can now come 
in and bet if they wish to. 

The rules for calling and showing are precisely 
the same as in draw Poker. The hands usually 
run much weaker, however, three of a kind being 
very strong; and two pairs will win three pools 



FOSTER ON POKER 


95 


I out of four in a five-hand game, unless they are 
bluffed out. If the limit is large enough, a well- 
placed bluff usually pays better than good cards. 

STUD POKER 

In this form of the game, one card is dealt 
to each player face down, and then one face up. 
The player with the highest card “showing,” or 
I face up, has the first say, to bet or pass; and then 
the player to his left must bet or pass, and so on. 
Of course, each player looks at his own first, 
or “down” card, before deciding whether to bet 
or not. If a bet is made, each player to the left 
j of the bettor must either see it or throw up his 

) cards, passing out of the pool. If there is no bet, 

or if any bet has been seen, another card is dealt 
face up to those who remain in the pool; and then 
the player with the highest hand showing in his 
two cards has the first say to bet or pass. 

As long as two or more players remain in the 
! pool, this goes on until each has received five 
cards, one face down and four face up. After 
the betting on the last card dealt comes to an 
end, the down cards are turned up, and the best 
Poker hand takes the pool; and the cards are 
‘ gathered and dealt for the next hand, the deal 
usually passing to the left. 

Straights and straight flushes are usually of 
no value in stud or straight Poker, which were 
invented before straights were played. 








96 


PRACTICAL POKER 


WHISKY POKER 

This form of the game was originally played 
in the lumber camps of America, to decide who 
should pay for the drinks. 

An extra hand, or “widow,” is dealt in the centre 
of the table. The dealer gives five cards to each 
player, face down, one at a time in rotation, deal¬ 
ing to the widow just before he deals to himself. 
The deal passes to the left. 

The player on the left of the dealer has the 
first say, and after he has examined his cards he 
can do any one of three things;— 

(a) Exchange his whole hand for the widow, on 
the chance that it is better than his own. If he 
takes the widow, his own cards are laid on‘the 
table face up, and spread out so that the others 
can see what they are. 

(b) He can “pass” without doing anything, 
holding his cards. This will transfer to the player 
on his left the option of taking the widow. 

(c) He can play his hand “pat,” to signify 
which he knocks on the table, or says, “I knock.” 
This passes the option of taking the widow to the 
next player. 

If the widow is taken, each player to the left 
can do any one of three things—take the whole 
five cards in exchange for his own five; or discard 
any one card from his own hand, leaving it face 
up on the table as part of the widow, and taking 



FOSTER ON POKER 


97 


one of the widow’s cards in exchange for it; or 
knock on the table. A player cannot draw and 
knock at the same time, neither can he pass with¬ 
out either drawing or knocking after the widow 
has been turned up, unless some previous player 
has knocked. 

The opportunity to draw or exchange continues 
to pass round the table in this manner, each player 
having perhaps several draws, until some player is 
content and knocks. As soon as any one knocks, 
that means that when it comes round to his turn 
again, all the hands must be shown; but after the 
knock each of the other players still has one more 
chance to draw or exchange. 

If a player knocks before the widow is exposed, 
it is sometimes the custom to turn the widow up 
immediately; but such a practice handicaps any 
one who knocks on a pat hand. 

If no one takes the widow until it comes to 
the dealer, he must either take it or turn it face 
up on the table. Even if the dealer knocks with¬ 
out exchanging, he must turn up the widow and 
let each player see it, and draw or exchange. 

When the hands are shown, the best Poker 
hand wins. If the pool has been made up by 
each player putting up a chip, the winner takes 
all. If the game is for refreshments, the worst 
hand pays. 





98 


PRACTICAL POKER 


COMING IN 


It is obvious that, after he has learned the rules 
of the game and the comparative values of the 
various hands, the first matter in which the Poker 
player will be called upon to exercise his individual 
judgment will be as to coming in. It may be as 
to putting up the ante in an ordinary pool, or it 
may be as to opening a jack-pot, or going into 
one already opened; whichever it is, judgment is 
necessary. 

There is nothing about which opinion differs so 
much as to the proper qualifications for going in. 
Several things tend to complicate the problem, 
such as the player’s position at the table with 
regard to the age, the amount it will or may cost 
him to draw cards, and the number of players who 
are already in, or may come in. It is evident that 
all these considerations affect the value of the 
player’s original hand. 

The ultimate deciding point of the whole ques¬ 
tion of coming in must, of course, be the five cards 
that the player holds. With certain hands there is 
no question about coming in, no matter what the 
circumstances may be; with others there is no 
question about staying out; but with the majority 
of hands it is a problem, upon the correct solu¬ 
tion of which much of the success at the game 
depends. 





FOSTER ON POKER 


99 


Some players come in on anything, some on 
average hands, some on “sure things,’’ and some 
on inspiration. Many good players will tell you 
they have tried all sorts of systems about coming 
in, and they do not see much difference in the re¬ 
sult. They say, “It’s all in the draw.” 

The most potent reason for coming in on any 
kind of a pair is, that the person likes to play, likes 
to take his chance with the rest, likes to be in 
every pot and enjoy the game as it goes, instead of 
sitting out hand after hand, waiting for court cards 
and sure things. If the object of playing Poker 
is to enjoy yourself, this is an excellent reason; if 
the object is to win, it is a very bad way to go 
about it. 

The jack-pot has killed the “sure thing” players. 
Proctor advised never going into a pot with less 
than three of a kind; but he was a mathematician, 
and not a player. With five or six in the game, 
and an average of at least one jack-pot every 
round, a person will ante himself away waiting for 
triplets, which will not be dealt to him originally 
more than once in nine rounds; and he will not 
always win the pot with them when he does get 
them. Any player who passbs every hand for 
nearly two hours (which is about the time it takes 
to play about forty or fifty deals) would certainly 
attract attention; and when he did play, his hand 
would be called as cheaply as possible, and very 
carefully examined. The next time he put up an 

H 2 








lOO 


PRACTICAL POKER 


ante, everyone who had not three of a kind or 
better would drop out and make a jack-pot of it. 

If a player cannot afford to wait for sure things, 
what is he to wait for, or should he draw to any¬ 
thing and everything ? The answer to this question 
must depend on the kind of game he is in. 

The authorities who base their theories upon 
mathematical calculations will tell you the exact 
average value of any hand when five are playing 
or when six are playing, and they will advise you 
never to go in unless you have a hand at least equal 
to that average. 

But you are not playing against the average 
value of the six hands dealt. You are playing 
against those who come into the pool, which is 
quite another thing. It is not of the slightest 
practical use to you to know the average value of 
the dealt hands; what you want to know is the . 
average value of the hands that ante to draw cards. 
Observation of the methods of the men who hold 
the cards is the. only answer to this question. 

There are two kinds of players, and they make 
two kinds of games, the close game and the liberal 
game. If you are one of six players, none of the 
others coming in on less than tens, while you draw 
to anything from deuces up, you are getting the 
worst of it all the time. But if you never draw to 
anything less than tens, and the other five draw to 
any kind of a pair, you are getting the best of it, if 
you have not frightened them to such an extent 
that they will not play against you unless they can 






FOSTER ON POKER 


loi 


beat tens. If you choose to adapt your game to 
theirs, coming in on their level, and drawing to 
anything and everything, you have an average 
hand every time you are dealt eights or better. In 
the close game, you must hold kings to be on the 
average. 

There is a certain law of compensation about 
coming in, which adjusts the differences between 
the risks and the rewards. The greater the number 
of players that come in against you, the greater the 
probability that an average hand will be beaten; 
but by the very fact of their coming in against you 
these players make it worth your while to risk it, 
because of the increased value of the pool. 

Suppose six are playing, four will be the average 
number to come in, of which you are one. It is 
then three to one that they will beat you; but..by 
coming in they make the pool worth four times as 
much as you contributed to it, which is practically 
betting you three to one. If only one man came 
in against you, it would be even betting, as both 
your antes would be equal, and the chances of 
improvement, both having average hands, would 
also be equal. If you ante against three other 
players four times in succession, you should draw 
the best hand once and win one pot out of the 
four, if you have always gone in on average hands. 
What you may win on this hand, and what you 
may lose on the others which are not the best, 
does not depend on the coming in, but on your 
judgment in playing the completed hand. 






102 


PRACTICAL POKER 


If you do not go in on equal hands, but on 
inferior ones, it must be obvious that you decrease 
your chances of having the best hand after the 
draw even once in four times. It is useless to 
argue that you have a chance to make three of a 
kind by drawing to a pair of deuces, which will 
beat aces up. Any other player at the table has an 
equally good chance of making threes, if he draws 
to a pair of tens or jacks; and if you draw and he 
draws a hundred times, you to deuces and he to 
tens, he will win all your money, and will have the 
best hand after the draw four times out of five, as 
we shall see when we come to consider going into 
jack-pots. When he does not improve, he will 
not bet against you; when he does improve, he will 
beat you. 

Many persons ask, what is the use of a knowl¬ 
edge of Poker probabilities and odds ? If the mind 
is not burdened with a mass of unnecessary and 
unclassified figures, but taxes itself with the gen¬ 
eral principles only, they are very useful. The 
odds against coming in on weaker hands than those 
which the other players habitually draw to, is a 
case in point. Few persons realise the enormous 
advantage held by a player who draws to a pair of 
tens against a player who draws to any pair less 
than tens. 

Blackbridge, who was a great calculator, says, 
that a pair of tens is worth nearly forty per cent, 
more than a pair of eights on the go-in, and con¬ 
tends that if A always has aces to go in with, and 





FOSTER ON POKER 


103 


B always has eights, A will beat B five times out 
of six. I consider this a low estimate, because the 
eights must always improve to triplets to beat any 
sort of improvement in the aces. 

One thing that is overlooked by those who 
discuss the merits of going in on certain strength 
is, that the going in is voluntary in an ordinary 
pool, and that B, who goes in on eights or any¬ 
thing, will win a number of pools that A will not 
go into at all, because A has no aces. These 
players who go in all the time pick up a number 
of small pots that those who wait for large pairs 
never play for. 

Fortunately, Poker cannot be played by ma¬ 
chinery, and no player can assure to himself any 
permanent advantage from the mere fact that he 
goes in on hands of a certain value only, because 
after he has got his hand he has still to play for the 
pot. Some Poker players are skilful enough to 
make up in the betting for any slight percentage 
against them in coming in; while others, who may 
have gained a slight advantage in the ante, lose it 
by injudicious betting after the draw. 

In estimating the strength required for an average 
go-in hand, the position at the table must be con¬ 
sidered. This position may be said to improve the 
nearer it is to the right of the dealer, whether it 
is a jack-pot or not. The majority of players will 
tell you that the better the position, the less the 
necessity for a good hand; the worse the position, 
the greater need for a hand to compensate it. 





104 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Some authors have made fanciful diagrams of 
the relative value of the seats with regard to the age. 
Taking the average value as lo in a six-hand game, 
they call the age worth 14; the dealer, 12; and the 
others to the right of the dealer, 10, 9, 8, and 7 
respectively. This makes the age twice as valuable 
as the first bettor—an estimate which is flatly con¬ 
tradicted by others, who think the age is the most 
deceptive seat at the table. 

The fact of the matter is, that one position is 
about as ^ood as another, if it is properly played. 
The endless variation of Poker tactics, according 
to the position of the player, adds not a little to the 
attraction of the game and to the test of a play¬ 
er’s abilities. These points about the play of 
certain positions should be carefully studied by the 
beginner. 

The first man to declare whether he will come in 
or not in an ordinary pool, is the player on the left 
of the age, if there has been no straddle. He is 
popularly spoken of as “the man under the gun,” 
and it is a very appropriate title, because every 
player at the table has the drop on him. He has 
to give the option on everything—on his ante, on 
his draw, and on his first bet. 

The greatest temptation to the man under the 
gun is to get out of part of his difficulties by strad¬ 
dling the blind. Blackbridge says some persons 
seem to imagine the best time to straddle is when 
they are in bad luck, on the principle that bad 
luck and bad play combined must win. The best 






FOSTER ON POKER 


105 


players are always averse to straddling, because 
it is paying for a privilege which is not worth its 
cost. The only effect of the straddle is to give 
the straddler the last say about making good his 
ante; he still has to draw and bet in his regular 
turn. If, after straddling, he finds he has a good 
original hand, he has probably kept out several 
antes by his straddle. If he has not a good 
hand, he has simply fattened the pool for some 
one that has. 

There is a much simpler way out of the alleged 
difficulties of this position, and that is to avoid 
going in unless the original hand is decidedly 
above the average. The standard is generally put 
down as jacks or better among liberal players, aces 
or better among close players. With a pair at least 
as good as court cards to come in on, the player 
. should be willing to stand a raised ante, although 
he cannot well raise himself. He should also be 
willing to bet at least a white chip after the draw, 
to see how things go. 

The worst mistake that a player can make, in 
1 this position, is in going in on weak hands, and 
then standing by them after the ante has been 
raised, simply because he is already in. 

If the man under the gun comes in, the player 
next on his left occupies a position very similar to 
that of the first man to say after a jack-pot has 
been opened. If the play of the man on the right 
has been carefully observed, it should be known 
whether he goes in as first bettor, on anything at 






io6 


PRACTICAL POKER 


all, or only on hands of a certain strength. This is 
carrying out the principle of adjusting your play 
to that of the others at the table, according to 
whether it is liberal or close. 

If the man under the gun is a close player, you 
should know that you are coming in against at 
least one hand that will beat yours four times out 
of five, if you are not equally strong, both of you 
having equal chances to improve. 

It is very strange that so few players allow their 
decision about coming in to be influenced by the 
fact that the man under the gun has or has not 
come in ahead of them. If they are not in that 
position themselves, they pay no attention to it, 
but come in on average hands (usually a pair of 
any kind), without any regard to the fact that if 
the man under the gun is a close player they are t 
beaten, by one hand at least, before the draw. ' 
To be strictly scientific, if the first bettor is a close _ 
player, no one should come in against him who | 
does not hold court cards or better. The position 
is about the same as a jack-pot which is opened, 
but with the great difference, as we shall see 
presently, that there is no outside pool to be 
played for. 

If the man under the gun does not come in, the 
next man to say has the same difficulties to face, 
but in less degree, because there is at least one 
player less to contend against; therefore the second 
man to say can come in on a slightly weaker hand 



FOSTER ON POKER 


107 


than the first bettor would require, but it should 
still be above the average. This is the theory. 

In practical Poker it will be found that the first 
bettor does not pay much attention to the theo¬ 
retical difficulties of his position, but comes in on 
about the same hands in that position that he 
would ante on in any other position. It is also 
unquestionably true that the other players round 
the table come in on the hands that they usually 
regard as worth drawing to, without paying much 
attention to the first bettor’s being in or not. I 
have never seen a player who was in the habit of 
coming in on eights, or better, lay them down 
simply because the man under the gun had come 
in ahead of him. 

If the first two men to say in a six-hand game 
refuse to come in, the third man to say can have 
but three opponents at the most, and in accordance 
with the principle that the smaller the number of 
players the more valuable the hands, he can safely 
come in on pairs which are even below average. 

When it comes round to the dealer’s right hand, 
the number of players who have already come in 
may greatly affect one’s decision, because the larger 
the number who have anted, the greater the value 
of the pool, and therefore the greater the tempta¬ 
tion to risk something to win it. The less one has 
to pay in proportion to the whole pool, the better 
the investment. Some persons insist that it is 
equal whether they come in against one player. 




io8 


PRACTICAL POKER 


each putting up an equal amount, or play against ^ 
four others at odds of four to one. This is only I 
true of certain cases, which will be more thoroughly f 
discussed in the chapter on “Betting.’’ I 

When the amounts already anted are not equal | 
—after a raise, for instance—the circumstances are 
entirely changed. Suppose no one has come in 
until it is the dealer’s turn, and he has a pair of , 
tens. They are well worth drawing to against the , 
age—in fact, it is odds that the age cannot beat ■ 
them. But if four men have already come in, and I 
two of them have each in turn raised the ante the j 
limit, the dealer’s pair of tens is not much of a 1 
hand to pay twice the limit to draw to, against such r 
declared strength in the other hands. 

If it is true that the value of a weak hand in- J 
creases as its position approaches the age, the ■ 
age itself must be the best position in which to 11 
play a weak hand. This is true, for two reasons: C 
everyone has declared before the age is called on « 
to decide; and the age can come in at half-price, 
if the ante has not been raised. It is for the.. 
second reason that the age can afford to draw to W 
hands which another player should lay down. J 

An illustration will make this clear. Suppose 
two players have anted, two chips each, and the 
dealer has a four-card straight, open at both ends. J 
There are five chips in the pot, and he will have 1 
to pay two to draw cards, with the chance of being \ 
raised by the age. The draw is not worth it, be- j 




FOSTER ON POKER 


109 

cause it is five to one against making the straight, 
and the pool offers him only five chips to two. 
' But suppose the dealer has a pair, and goes in, 
I and the age is the one that holds a four-card 

' straight. There are now seven chips in the pool, 

and the age can draw to his bobtail by putting up 
one chip only; so that the chance is well worth it. 

If there were five players already in without 
raising the ante, there would be eleven chips in the 
pool, and the age could afford to draw to an inside 
straight, the odds against filling it being eleven to 
^ one. Should any other player have paid to draw 
! to an inside straight, no matter what his position, 

I he must have paid more than twice what it was 

[ worth for the chance. 

All these little things show the necessity for a 
player’s being familiar with that part of Poker 
statistics which relate to the probabilities of filling 
or improving certain classes of hands. Unless he 
can compare the odds against him with the money 
on the table, he does not know what he is doing. 

What it will cost to draw cards is always doubt¬ 
ful, except to the age or the last straddler. The ante 
may be two chips, but any following player may 
raise it the limit. The fewer players there are still 
to declare, the less likely it is that the ante will 
be raised; but the possibility must always be taken 
into account, and no player should ante who is not 
willing to face the alternative of having to sacrifice 
his ante or meet a raise. 








no 


PRACTICAL POKER 


OPENING JACK-POTS 


Whether or not to open or go into a jack-pot 
depends on somewhat different considerations 
from those which affect the decision in an ordi¬ 
nary pool. 

The great difference between jack-pots and 
ordinary pools, which is generally overlooked by 
beginners, is that there is a sort of bonus, or pre- i 

mium, in a jack, made up of the original antes; • 
and that the cost of playing a hand is therefore 
proportionately much less in a jack than it is in 
an ordinary pool. 

For the sake of convenience in discussing jacks, 
it will be assumed that the ante agreed upon is 
always half the betting limit; so that, if six are 
playing, there is three times the limit in the pool 
to begin with. | 

Good players differ considerably as to the 
advisability of the first man to say coming in on i 

“bare openers”—that is, just a pair of jacks, ! 

sometimes called “openers only.” I could never ] 

see anything in this objection to opening as first- j 

to-say simply because the player holds only just i 

enough to open on. One should be very glad to 
have openers, and only too ready to play them, 
for reasons which will appear presently. 






FOSTER ON POKER 


III 


But if a person does not like to open a jack 
when first to say, he should have a clear concep¬ 
tion of the possibilities of his position if he passes, 
holding bare openers. 

The larger the number of players in the game, 
the greater the probability that some one else can 
open if the first man does not. It is nearly four 
to one against any particular hand holding openers, 
jacks or better. With seven players in the game, 
openers should be held about four times in five 
deals; with six playing, three times in four deals; 
with five playing, twice in three deals. It is there¬ 
fore evident that if the first man to say has openers 
and passes, the odds are slightly against any other 
player at the table being able to open. 

The objection to opening on the weakest pos¬ 
sible qualification, when you are the first to say, 
is that although you have no idea of the strength 
of the other hands, except what you can judge 
from the draw, you have to take the initiative in 
everything, and give all the others an option on 
your play. 

With better than bare openers—that is, with two 
pairs of triplets—there is nothing to be gained by 
waiting for someone else to open. What is the 
object of letting another player open it? To raise 
him? What is the object of raising him? 'To 
drive out all the others? Do you want to drive 
them out if you have a hand good enough to beat 
them? Three of a kind before the draw should 




II2 


PRACTICAL POKER 


win five pots out of six against all improvements. 

If your hand is not good enough to beat the others, 
do you want to raise it just to fatten the pot for 
them? 

Suppose that you are strong enough to raise 
the opener, and pass for that purpose, and that 
he happens to sit on your right hand. What 
happens when you raise him? All the players 
on your left are driven out. Had you opened, 
some of them might have come in, and the player , 
on your right might have raised, and then you 
would have been master of the situation, to drive 
them out with a return raise, or let them come 
in and fatten the pot by meeting the single raise, 
if you felt strong enough to beat them after the 
draw. 

If the first man to say does not open, the second 
or third man should open on anything that will 
open. • j 

If the opener has a fairly strong hand, he will j 
sometimes make the mistake of opening it cheap, I 
so as to get in all the antes he can, forgetting that ' 
the more players he induces to draw cards, the i 
more chances they will have to beat him. A player | 
who is let into a jack-pot cheaply will sometimes 
make the most extraordinary draws. If a white 
chip is worth a fourth of the limit (which is putting i 
a high value on it), it is surely better to get ih'Otie j 
man for the limit than to coax in four for a chip | 
each. Opening for the limit, with a view to > 




FOSTER ON POKER 


113 


driving out weak hands, is good policy when the 
opener is not particularly strong himself, and is 
especially good play when several have already 
refused to open. 

With such a strong hand as three court cards, 
four out of six men having passed, the opening 
should always be for the limit, because if the 
players who have passed come in, they are prob¬ 
ably drawing to bobtails or pairs smaller than 
court cards; their draw will tell which. Even 
if they improve their pairs to threes, they will 
not be able to beat your threes; but they will 
almost surely call any bet ybu, make' after the 
draw, and will very probably raise you, because 
there is something in human nature which makes 
a man who has drawn a strong hand think a 
great deal more of it than if he had held it 
originally. 

It is rather interesting, in these days of universal 
jack-pots, to read over some of the opinions ex¬ 
pressed about them when they were quite new to 
the game, and still very little played. Blackbridge, 
writing in 1874, which was not more than two or 
three years after jack-pots were invented, says:— 
“The first man to say should never open on less 
than triplets; but if no one has opened until it comes 
to the dealer’s turn, he can open on a single pair, 
and the chances are that all the others will throw 
up their hands. Those who do come in, and draw 
one card after having passed, may be drawing to 






PRACTICAL POKER 


114 

bobtails.” The following axioms about jack-pots 
he considers unquestionable:— 

“They are usually opened too near the left of the dealer, 
and on hands insufficient to justify the risk ahead of them.” 

“When opened on the left of the dealer, they are usually 
opened for too much money.” 

“The right of the dealer, or the dealer himself, usually 
opens with a limit bet on a weak hand and a coaxing bet on 
a strong hand.” 

“The more money a weak hand puts into a jack-pot, the 
less it wins.” 

“Jack-pots should never be played except on strong 
hands, because the game is a show-down, and the weaker 
hand has no chance of driving out the stronger.” 








FOSTER ON POKER 


I15 


COMING INTO JACK-POTS 


After a jack-pot has been opened, the question of 
i coming in against the opener presents itself to each 
player in turn. All writers on Poker insist that it is 
useless to come into a jack-pot against such declared 
strength as openers, unless you have as good as 
openers yourself, because, although you may oc- 
|i casionally draw enough to beat the opener, you will 
^ not be able to do so often enough to compensate you 
j: for your losses when you try to beat him and fail, 
i; This is all very well in theory, but I have never 
I' seen the game in which it was carried out in prac- 
i tice. If the opener were never opposed by any but 
I those who had as good as openers, he would take 
the pot without opposition more than half the time. 

In practical Poker, any player with a pair as good 
' as eights will come in against the opener, and in 
the majority of games a player who holds a pair 
of any kind will come in and try his luck. As 
we shall see presently, a pair of deuces is just as 
good as a pair of tens to draw to against openers. 

Suppose the ante for jack-pots is half the limit, 
and six are in the game. The player argues that 
there are six antes already in the pool, and that 
three besides himself will probably play for it. If 
it is opened for the limit, there will be six limits 
in the pool; and by paying one-sixth of that amount. 







ii 6 


PRACTICAL POKER 


he can draw to a pair, the odds against improving 
which are less than three to one. If he takes this 
risk six times, he should improve twice, and it 
would then be simply a question as to whether his 
improvement was good enough to win the pot. 

This refers to drawing to pairs; bobtail straights 
and flushes have not so much in their favor, the 
odds against improving them being nearly twice as 
great. It is very seldom worth while to pay for the 
privilege of drawing to a four-card straight or flush 
unless there is money enough in the pot to justify 
the risk, and you are the last to say, so that you 
cannot be raised. The only occasion upon which 
it would be right to draw to an inside straight, 
would be when the pot is opened so cheaply that 
there is more than twelve times as much money 
in it as you will have to pay to draw cards. 

A very important principle to be remembered 
in coming in, whether it is a jack-pot or not, is 
that when you have once decided on the value of 
the hand which you will support, you must stick to 
it upon every occasion, unless the ante is raised. 
No play is sound for one time that would not be 
sound all the time. It is useless to draw to bob- 
tails upon some occasions, and not upon others; 
either drop them altogether, or play them every 
time you get them. Come in against openers 
every time you have a pair of any kind, or else 
make up your mind never to come in with less 
than openers yourself. If you are not willing to 
pursue a certain theory or system for a hundred 




FOSTER ON POKER 


117 


deals in succession, do not waste your money trying 
it once or twice in an evening. 

The opener and any others who come in, have, 
of course, equal chances of improvement. It can 
be demonstrated, both by calculation and experi¬ 
ment, that if the opener has the best hand to 
start with, he will have the best hand after the 
draw in the majority of cases. But there is always 
this element of chance in the game, that the opener 
may not improve in the same pot, or to the same 
extent, that the player drawing against him im¬ 
proves. Human nature is stronger than mathe¬ 
matics, and no amount of scientific demonstration 
will ever prevent a practical Poker player from 
drawing to a fair-sized pair, in the hope of beating 
the opener in a jack-pot, when he can get the 
privilege of drawing to his little pair for one-sixth 
of the total value of the pool. 

There must be some good reason for good 
players persistently going into jack-pots, and draw- 
, ing against openers, in spite of all the scientific 
warnings against the practice. The explanation of 
it would seem to be that experience does not con- 
' firm calculation in the matter. As Winterblossom 
! says, we learn from experience that certain events 
occur more frequently than others, and from this 
experience we deduce that there are certain proba¬ 
bilities in favour of such events. Calculation usual¬ 
ly confirms this, as in the case of the rank of Poker 
hands, which were first fixed by experience. Per¬ 
haps the want of harmony in this case is due to the 







ii8 


PRACTICAL POKER 


fact that the calculations have not been founded 
on sound premises. 

If there is anything in the following analysis of 
one phase of the question, this going in against 
openers is based on sound principles, because, if 
the player does not go in at all, he submits to the 
immediate and inevitable loss of his antes; w'hereas 
if he does go in, it would seem that he saves or 
recovers two-thirds of these antes. If everyone at 
the table had a pair, and they all went into every 
jack-pot, this would not be true; but if six are 
playing, the average number to go in will be three 
or four. It is the fact that the others have aban¬ 
doned their interest that makes it worth while for 
any player with a pair to play for his share of these 
abandoned antes. 

As this question of coming into jack-pots is one 
of the most disputed at Poker, and as more money 
is won and lost on the play than in any other way, it 
is to the interest of every player to settle it for him¬ 
self. Anyone who has a couple of hours to spare can 
satisfy himself as to the wisdom of coming in against 
openers by making the following experiment. 

Take from the pack and lay upon the table a 
pair of jacks, a pair of tens, a pair of nines, and 























FOSTER ON POKER 


119 


A is supposed to be the opener, and the others 
are four out of six players, who have anted to 
draw to their pairs. Take the remainder of the 
pack, shuffle it thoroughly—at least ten intricate 
shuffles and a cut—and then help each of these 
four men to three cards, laying them face up, 
near, but not mixed with, their original pairs. 
Repeat this experiment a hundred times, noting 
on a slip of paper which of the four players. A, 
B; C, or D, has the best hand after the draw. 

Here is the result of one such hundred deals, 
ten intricate shuffles and a cut between each 
draw. In order to show the regularity of the 
results, the score for each ten successive deals 
is given separately, the figures indicating the 
number of times in ten that the hand was the 
best of the whole four after the draw:— 

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Total . 
A’sjacks...5 653654525= 46 
B’s Tens....2 2322 13311= 20 

C’s Nines...I i i 1-3 i 143 = 16 

D’s Eights..2 I 142 I 2 131= 18 

It will be seen that eighteen is the average 
number of times that the best improved hand 
will be held by one of those opposed to the opener. 
Let us analyse the case of the player D, who draws 
to the lowest pair, which might therefore just as 
well be deuces. 

Suppose the amount in each pool to be six 
antes of half the limit, and that each pot is opened 
for the limit by A, seen by three players, B, C, 





120 


PRACTICAL POKER 


and D. Then there is always seven times the 
limit in the pool before a bet is made. D has 
anted a hundred times the limit to draw cards, 
and he has had the best hand after the draw in 
eighteen pools out of this hundred. To find 
what he would have got out of it if there had 
been no betting after the draw, multiply his i8 
by 7 (the number of limits in each pool), and 
126 times the limit is what he takes out. A, who 
wins or has the best hand 46 times, takes out 46 
multiplied by 7, or 322 times the limit. 

These figures are set down in the following 
table, column A showing the amount contributed 
to the 100 pools by each of six players, column 
B the amount taken out in antes, and column C 
the plus and minus so far. 

But there must be a bet after the draw; and, 
just for the sake of getting an average, let it be 
assumed that the bet and call is for the limit, so 
that the opener bets the limit on every hand after 
the draw. The expectation of improvement in 
the other hand being actually i in 3^, it is fair 
to assume that they would improve sulBhciently 
to justify them in calling about 25 times in the 
100 pools. If each of the three players, B, C, and 
D, called 25 times, they would contribute 75 limits 
in bets; while the dealer would contribute 100, as he 
bet on every hand. This makes the total amount 
bet, in addition to the antes, 175 times the limit. 

A, the opener, would win 46 hundredths of this 
amount, or 80J limits. Deduct this from the 100 




FOSTER ON POKER 


I2I 


he bet, and he is 19^ to the bad, as shown in 
column D. Deduct this 19^ from the 172 which 
he had the best of in the antes, and he is still 
j 152^ to the good on the 100 pools, as shown in 
* column E. 

D, with the smallest pair to go in on, has won 
just the average, 18 hundredths of this 175 limits 
bet. Deduct this from the 25 times he bet a 
limit each on his improved hands, and he is still 
to the good on the betting. He had 24 the 
: worst of it in the antes, and has recovered 6^, so 
he is still I'/i to the bad. B and C’s account have 
been adjusted in the same way; but it may be 
remarked that there is no reason why they should 
not all be equal with D. 



A 

B C 

1 

D 

E 

A Jacks ; 46 

150 

3221172 — 

— 

19J 

152i — 

B Tens 20 

150 

140 — 10 

10 

— 

— — 

C . Nines 10 

150 

112 ’ — 38 

3 

— 

— 35 

D Eights! 18 

150 

126 1 — *24 


— 

- 171 

E - - 

50 1 

— ’ — 50 ' 

— 

— 

— 50 

F — — 

50 

— — 50 

— 

— 

— 50 

Totals . 

700 

700 172 172 

m 

m 

I52i 1521 


The average loss of each player who comes in 
on any kind of a pair seems to be 17^ times the 
limit. The loss of those who do not come in at 
all is 50 times the limit. It would seem to be 
true, therefore, as already pointed out, that the 
























122 


PRACTICAL POKER 


player who comes in against openers with any 
kind of a pair, stands to save two-thirds of his 
money; whereas if he goes out without drawing, ^ 
he abandons it all. i 

If this analysis were extended to cases in which | 

one player, B, C, or D, had better than jacks, which | 

is often the case in actual play, it must also be ! 

extended to cases in which the opener has better j 

than jacks; so it is all a question of proportion. | 

The point to be decided is, should a player come in ' 

against openers—even the lowest openers possible i 
—when he has less than openers ? The main fact 
to be remembered is, that the hand which is the 
strongest at the table before the draw will be the i 
strongest after the draw, in the majority of cases. 

It is worthy of notice that a pair of eights is just 
as good as a pair of tens or nines, when drawing | 
against openers. This explodes the whole fallacy 
that a man might draw against openers if he had j 
tens, but would be foolish to do so if he had deuces ; 

only. It might be assumed that, as tens are better | 

than eights, they should win oftener. So they would 
if the jacks were not in the same pool. It is not a 
question of tens beating eights, but of eights beat¬ 
ing openers, which are jacks. If the eights can j 
beat the openers, of course they can beat the tens. ; 

None of the pairs held by B, C, or D are worth | 

anything unless they improve, and then they are , 
not worth much unless they can beat the improve¬ 
ment of the other hands. If D’s eights can be im- j 






FOSTER ON POKER 


123 


proved often enough to beat A’s improved jacks, 
of course they will beat improved tens as well, on 
the average. Any person trying the experiment of 
a hundred deals for the draw to improve, will see 
that the openers are not by any means always the 
second-best hand. 

When no one improves, the openers must win on 
their merits. In actual play, no one would call if 
no one had anything better than one pair smaller 
than jacks. When the improvement is of the same 
class in two or more hands, one of them being the 
openers, the openers must win on account of their 
initial superiority. A small pair drawn leaves jacks 
up still the best hand. A third card leaves three 
jacks still the best. But if a higher pair is drawn 
to the smaller pair, jacks up may be beaten; and 
any three of a kind will beat jacks up. 

From all the foregoing considerations, we are led 
to the following conclusions:— 

It pays better to draw against openers, if you 
hold any kind of a pair, than to abandon the pool 
altogether. 

It does not matter what the value of the pair 
you draw to, as the pair must be improved to beat 
the openers; and one improved pair is as good as 
another when opposed to an original pair which 
was better than either. 







124 


PRACTICAL POKER 


RAISING THE ANTE 


If a player decides to come into any pot, he puts 
up the amount of the ante, and at the same time he 
has the privilege of raising it, so as to make it cost 
more to draw cards. If some player has already 
raised, any player coming in after him can raise 
him again, and any player that he has raised can 
raise in return. There is no limit to the number 
of times that the ante may be raised. 

Most persons suppose that when a player raises 
the ante, his object is to make the pot as big as 
possible; but such is not always the case. 

One of the most common reasons for raising the 
ante is to drive out weaker hands, especially when 
those weaker'hands have already put up the ante, 
and usually when the player who raises it has a 
hand above the average, but one that is still quite 
easily beaten. 

Some players always raise the ante on a pair of 
aces, because they know the odds are eleven to one 
that no one player can beat them before the draw. 
If there are six in the game, and four of them are 
allowed to come in and draw to small pairs, the 
aces may be beaten. If all but one of them can 
be driven out by raising the ante, the aces will 
most likely win the pool. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


125 


Every good player raises the ante on two pairs 
for the same reason. The chance of improvement 
is small, and the risk of their being beaten after the 
draw is great; so it is better to reduce the number 
of opponents before the draw, if possible. It is a 
good general maxim to do all your betting on two 
pairs before the draw, while the odds are thirty- 
four to one against any one having a better hand, 
and to lose confidence in them if they are opposed 
in the betting after the draw. 

There is little to be gained by raising the ante to 
keep others out, when none of them have come in 
because there is nothing in the pool to win but the 
blind. For this reason, the first man to say seldom 
or never raises unless he has a pat hand, in which 
case he must take his chances of getting as much 
money in the pool as possible before his strength 
is exposed. Some will not raise unless there are 
two men in ahead of them; but the blind and one 
other will usually justify a raise. 

It is always advisable to raise the ante with a 
hand of such a character that its strength will be 
shown or suspected in the draw, because it is well 
known that players will pay more to see what they 
can draw than they will pay to see what you have 
drawn. 

A very common reason for raising the ante is, to 
make the pot worth having when the hand is one 
that is almost sure to be the best at the table, if it 
improves. Suppose three men have come in, and 




126 


PRACTICAL POKER 


the fourth to say has a bobtail flush or straight. 
He is going to draw one card; and, for fear no one 
will call him after the draw, he raises the ante, on 
the chance that he will win a good pot of antes at 
least, if he fills. 

Many players, after having raised for this reason, 
take advantage of the fact that they have created 
the impression of having a strong hand, and try 
to steal the pot by bluffing for it after the draw. 
Some raise the ante for the deliberate purpose of 
bluffing after the draw, even when they have no 
chance of filling or getting a strong hand. The 
Southern custom of raising the ante on a kilter, 
and then standing pat, is a case in point. With¬ 
out the raised ante, the bluff on a pat hand would 
be absurd. 

One peculiar use of the raised ante is, to find out 
what the other players think of their hands. It is 
seldom resorted to, because it is expensive, unless 
used with good judgment. Suppose four men are 
in, six playing, and the dealer raises the ante, not 
as much as the limit, but just a little “boost,” as 
it is called. He then watches carefully the ex¬ 
pressions on the faces of the various players who 
have already come in, in order to judge whether or 
not they feel the pinch. Sometimes a small raise 
of this kind will frighten players out more quickly 
than a limit raise, because they know a small raise 
is very unlikely to be the foundation for a bluff, 
but looks much like a coaxer. If one or two men 




FOSTER ON POKER 


127 


come in readily to meet the small raise, it is more 
than probable that they have pairs above the 
average. 

It is bad policy to raise the ante if you have a 
strong hand which can be drawn to as if^it were a 
weak one, because raising the ante calls attention 
to you, and prevents liberal betting against you 
after the draw. With three of a kind, for instance, 
to which you intend drawing two cards, it is better 
not to raise the ante unless someone has already 
raised it, and several others are already in, because 
if you draw two cards without raising, everyone at 
the table will credit you with a small pair and a 
kicker, and will bet against you freely at first, just 
as no one is afraid of a player who draws two cards 
after having refused to open a jack-pot. If you 
are going to draw one card only, three of a kind is 
a most valuable hand on which to raise the ante; 
and, for the same reason, if you have raised the 
ante, you should never draw two cards to a triplet 
afterwards, unless you feel that you need all your 
strength. Most players look upon three of a kind 
pat as good enough to win the pot, without any 
improvement. 

With four of a kind, to which you will draw one 
card, if you do not raise, the other players will 
credit you with a bobtail. If you raise, they will 
think you have two pairs at least, perhaps three 
of a kind and a kicker, and they will be very shy 
of calling you, and still more shy of raising. The 






128 


PRACTICAL POKER 


objection to drawing one card without raising is, 
that the moment you bet they credit you with 
having filled a flush or a straight; whereas, if you 
have raised before the draw, the bet after the draw 
may be a bluff, or it may be a bet on two pairs, 
they will not know which, and may not only call 
you, but raise you. Some very good players make 
it a rule always to raise the ante before a one-card 
draw, no matter what they are drawing to. 

With a full hand, you are practically compelled 
to raise before the draw, as it is very unlikely that 
anyone will bet against you after it. 

If the ante has already been raised, and you 
have to decide about meeting it, a good deal will 
depend on previous observation of the player’s 
methods, and still more will depend on whether 
or not it is worth while to pay the increased price 
to draw cards, with the probability of at least one 
strong hand out against you. 

Here is an example, from actual play, of raising 
before the draw. There were six in the game, but 
the age and the dealer both dropped out after the 
first raise, leaving these four hands to play for the 
pool. A was the man under the gun, and he 
anted two chips. 








FOSTER ON POKER 


129 




B, with his aces up, raised the ante the limit, 
and C raised him the limit in turn. D, who was 
playing in good luck, raised both of them, and A 
very properly dropped his pair. In the draw, B 
and C having both called D’s raise, B got another 
five, C did not improve, and D filled his flush. B 
bet the limit, and D raised him. Upon B raising 
the limit again, D very properly laid down his 
hand without calling, as he saw B must have raised 
the ante originally on two pairs, and must have 
improved to raise a hand that had double-raised 
the ante. 


K 






130 


PRACTICAL POKER 


DRAWING TO IMPROVE 


The following odds against improving any par¬ 
ticular class of hand should be familiar to every 
player, so that he may be able to compare the 
figures here given with the amount of money on 

Drawing three cards 
to a pair, the odds 
against any kind of im¬ 
provement are 2 J to i. 
Drawing two cards only, 
the odds are 4 to i. 

Drawing one card to 
two pairs, it is if to i 
against getting a full 
hand, which is the only 
improvement possible. 
If you discard the 
smaller pair, the chances of improvement become 
the same as drawing three cards to a single pair; 
therefore it is 2 § to i that you make your hand 
worse instead of better, while it is 7 to i against 
your getting a better hand of some sort—that is, 
better than two pairs. Some players consider this 
7 to I chance for triplets, or a full, better than the 
'5 to I chance for the full when one card is drawn 
to the two pairs. If the hand improves to two 









FOSTER ON POKER 


131 


pairs, it is no better than it was originally; if it 
improves to triplets, it is very much stronger. It 
must not be forgotten that, although the odds 
against the one-card draw are ii to i, if the hand 
does improve, it is practically sure of winning the 
pool. Taking all these considerations together, 
it is about an even thing whether the player draws 
one small card to two small pairs, or discards the 
smaller pair and draws three cards. 

Drawing two cards to 
three oj a kind, it is 
about 7 to I against any 
improvement. If only 
one card is drawn, it is 
II to I against. 

Drawing one card to 
an open-end straight, it 
is about 5 to I against 
filling. There is a chance 
of getting a pair. 

Drawing one card to 
an interior straight, it is 
II to I against filling, 
with the added chance 
of a pair, of course. 

Drawing one card to a 
flush, it is about 4 i to i 
against filling. There 
is also a chance for a 
pair. 







132 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Drawing one card to a straight flush which is open 
at both ends, the odds 
are 3 to i against any im¬ 
provement. Against get¬ 
ting the straight flush 
they are 24 to i. 




Drawing one card to 
an interior straight flush, 
it is 4 to I against any 
improvement, the odds 
against the straight flush 
being 46 to i. 


There are some odds which are more interesting 
than useful, such as the following:— 





Drawing jour cards 
to an ace, it is 4 to i 
against getting a pair 
of aces, and 12 to i 
against getting aces up 
or better. 

Drawing three cards 
to an ace and king, it is 
3 to I against making a 
pair of either. 

Drawing two cards 
to a three-card straight, 
open at both ends, it is 
24 to I against filling it. 






FOSTER ON POKER 


m 



Drawing to three cards 
of a straight fiush^ open 
at both endsy it is 12 to i 
against getting either the 
straight or the flush. 


Several of these odds may be divided into their 
separate parts, if it is required to be known what 
the chances are against improvement of a special 
character. Take the draw of three cards to a pair, 
for instance. It is about 5J to i against getting 
two pairs, 8 to i against triplets, 97 to i against a 
full hand, and 359 to i against four of a kind. 
When all these fractions of probability are added 
together, as will be explained in the chapter on 
“Poker Calculations,” the result will be a fraction 
of about I in 3J, or 2J to i against any of all these 
various forms of improvement. 

One of the most peculiar idiosyncrasies of the 
beginner is holding up a kicker with a small pair. 
A kicker is an ace or king, or some card which is 
no use to the hand as it stands, but might be 
useful if it could be matched. There are two 
objects in holding it up: to get a mate to it, and 
to conceal the fact that the player is coming in on 
a single pair. That any authority should recom¬ 
mend such a thing as holding up a kicker with a 
small pair, except to vary the draw, is surprising, 
because the absurdity of it must be at once appar¬ 
ent to anyone who will take the trouble to analyse 
the possibilities of the case. 







134 


PRACTICAL POKER 


If the object is to improve the hand, part of the 
chances are thrown away by holding up the odd 
card, because, if three cards are drawn to the pair, 
it is only 2^ to i against improving; while, if two 
are drawn, it is 4 to i against. It is easier to get a 
third card to match the pair, than it is to get a 
second ace to match the kicker. 

If the object is to make the other players think 
you have three of a kind all the time, you must 
raise the ante, or they will, not pay much atten¬ 
tion to you. Suppose your dream is realised, and , 

that you get the two pairs you were drawing for, ■ 

aces up. You will probably be sorry if you have I 
succeeded in making anyone think you had three 1 
of a kind, because they will not call you. If any- j 
one comes in against you and bets, he can prob- | 
ably beat threes, unless they are big ones. If you 
have not improved, and are going to bluff it out I 
by betting high on the little pair and the kicker, ! 
you are presuming on the players opposed to you. j 
You must always give your opponents credit for | 
being able to judge your play by your coming in 
and your draw. 

AVERAGES 

Some persons find great difficulty in under¬ 
standing averages. This is especially true of such 
matters as the average expectation of improvement 
in the draw. The theory of it is this: what you win 
or lose in one particular pool, or in two or three 
pools, or in one evening’s play, is not the point. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


135 


What you would win or lose if you persisted in 
the same policy consistently for a thousand pools, 
is the question. The total result of these thou¬ 
sand trials, divided by a thousand, would give you 
an average of loss or gain. 

If you draw to a certain hand—let us say a 
pair of deuces—a thousand times, your hands after 
the draw will be of all sorts, from four of a kind 
down; but they would have a certain value on 
the average. The only way of stating this average 
is to suppose that some other player had a certain 
hand against you for every one of these thousand 
deals, and that he stood pat on it, never improv¬ 
ing it; and that this hand was of such strength 
that he would beat you just about as often as you 
would beat him with your three-card draw to your 
pair of deuces. 

What this hand would be can be calculated, 
and it can also be proved by experiment, the 
test being similar to the one already described in 
connection with coming in against openers in jack¬ 
pots. It would not take any person a moment 
to decide that, if the pat hand were a flush or a 
full, the player drawing to deuces would have 
no chance against it; so a flush or a full must 
be entirely too high a statement of the average. 
There would also be very little hesitation in saying 
that, if the pat hand were a pair of treys only, the 
deuces, with the advantage of the draw, in a six- 
hand game, would beat them hollow in a thousand 
trials; so treys must be too low an average. 






PRACTICAL POKER 


136 


The real average lies somewhere between these 
two extremes, and it can be demonstrated to be a 
pair of jacks. That is to say, if you drew three 
cards to a pair of deuces, and another man stood 
pat on a pair of jacks, you would each have the 
best hand at the table about an equal number 
of times if you continued the experiment for a 
thousand trials; but if he had aces pat, he would 
win more pots than you; and if he had nines pat, 
you would win more than he in the long run, no 
matter how many others were ih the game. 

The following table will give the player a general 
idea of these averages, the value given in the 
right-hand column being what the hand will be 
worth, on the average, after the draw. 

Drawing to:— 


An ace, or ace, king.Pair of eights. 

Ace,. king, queen, or ace, king, queen, 

jack.Pair of fours. 

A four-card flush.Pair of jacks. 

An open-end straight.Pair of nines. 

An interior straight.Pair of deuces. 

Any pair below sixes.Pair of court cards. 

Pair of sixes, sevens, or eights.Two small pairs. 

Pair of nines, tens, or jacks.Two big pairs. 

Pair of queens or kings.Aces up. 

Pair of aces.Small triplets. 


The value of this table consists in its being a 
guide to the probabilities of the complete hand. 
The beginner, about to draw to a pair, lets his 
fancy wander over its many possibilities, without 


















^37 


FOSTER ON POKER 

the slightest conception of what its true or aver¬ 
age value will be after the draw has been made. 
Instead of asking yourself, “Is it worth while to 
draw to a pair of eights?” put the question in 
the other form, “Will two small pairs be good 
enough, after the draw, to win the pool?” In¬ 
stead of considering the advisability of coming in 
on a pair of fives, with all their possibilities, ask 
yourself whether you would go into the pool if 
you knew that a pair of jacks would be about 
the value of your hand after the draw. 

That a pair of fives can turn into a pair of jacks 
is, of course, impossible; and therein lies the difl&- 
culty of understanding this method of stating aver¬ 
age values. But the fact remains that if you had 
a pair of fives before the draw one hundred times, 
you would be in exactly the same position as that 
of a player who had a pair of jacks after the draw 
a hundred times. 

MAXIMS FOR DRAWING 

The player who is thoroughly familiar with the 
odds against getting any particular hand which 
he thinks of drawing for, has a great advantage 
over those who are without this technical knowl¬ 
edge, because he can always decide understand- 
ingly whether or not it is worth what it will cost 
to try the experiment. . 

There are five general principles with regard to 
the draw, which should be thoroughly understood:— 








PRACTICAL POKER 


138 

1. The smaller the number of players in the 
pool, the greater the value of the hands; the larger 
the number in, the greater the probability that 
any given hand will be beaten. 

2. The draw is of more value to the weak hand 
than to the strong, because the weaker cannot 
beat the stronger unless it improves. 

3. A draw which is improbable should never 
be attempted unless it can be cheaply purchased, 
because it is not worth while to pay even money 
for a 10 to I chance. 

4. If two different draws offer in the same 
hand, the most probable should be selected, unless 
the improbable one is necessary to win the pool. 

5. Holding up useless cards reduces the chances 
of improvement. 

These principles, although pretty obvious, may 
be briefly illustrated. 

(1) In a pool in which there is only one player 
opposed to you, a pair of eights is a fair hand 
to draw to, because it is nearly 6 to i that the 
other player cannot beat them; but if six men 
have come in ahead of you, it is 23 to i that your 
pair of eights are not worth drawing to. 

(2) A player with two pairs would rather put 
up a limit bet to keep the others from drawing, 
than he would pay a white check to draw cards 
himself. A player with a small pair in a big pot 
would sooner pay the limit to draw cards, than be 
allowed to stand pat for nothing, if such a thing 
were possible. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


139 

(3) A player with an inside straight would be 
foolish to pay the limit for the privilege of drawing 
to it, if there was only one man in against him, 
because the odds against filling are ii to i, and 
the bet is even money; but if five men had already 
come into a jack-pot, the sixth man would be 
foolish not to draw to a four-card flush, because 
the odds against filling it are only 4J to i, and 
he can buy the privilege of drawing cards for one- 
eighth of what is in the pot. It is because he can 
draw cheaply that the age usually plays such 
hands as bobtails, small pairs, and even monkey 
flushes. 

(4) If a player holds a pair of queens and four 
cards of a straight, he is more likely to improve 
the queens than he is to make the straight, it 
being 2^ to i against improving the pair, and 
5 to I against getting the sequence. But if the 
ante has been raised by a player ahead of him, 
who has drawn two cards only, it is improbable 
that two pairs (even queens up) will be good 
enough to win the pool; and the chance against 
getting three queens, 8 to i, with the possibility 
that they might not win the pot after all, suggests 
that it would be better to break the pair and try 
the 5 to I chance for the straight, which will beat 
three aces if it fills. 

(5) Good players usually draw to the full 
strength of the hand. If the hand is masked, 
it should be a hand which is probably strong 
enough to win the pool without improving. Some 




140 


PRACTICAL POKER 


authorities insist that, as the odds are nearly 
20 to I that three of a kind will not be beaten, 
even after the draw, the hand should always be 
masked. If only one card is drawn to three of 
a kind, the chances of improvement are cut in 
half. If two pairs are played pat, all chance of 
improvement is abandoned. In the first case, 
the object is to induce the other players to bet 
against you; in the second case, it is to prevent 
them from doing so. 

MASKING THE HAND 

It is very important that the player should draw 
to the same class of hands in various ways at dif¬ 
ferent times; otherwise his draw, when compared 
with his ante, will always give his adversaries a 
clue to his hand. 

For this reason good players usually play two 
pairs pat about half the time, and draw two cards 
to three of a kind about as often as they draw one, 
sometimes with a raised ante, sometimes without it. 
Some players go so far as to draw two cards, or 
only one card, to a good pair, when there is no 
evidence of any strong hands out against them. 

The occasional draw of one card to a pair of 
kings or aces, without raising the ante, has a very 
demoralising effect on some players when they call 
the hand. The one-card draw they assume to be 
to a bobtail, as the ante was not raised, and the 
bet after the draw they take to be a bluff, which 
they will call with any average pair. Next time, 





FOSTER ON POKER 


141 


when you draw one card to a bobtail without 
raising the ante, the recollection of your last play 
is fresh in their minds, and they will not only call 
your flush or straight, but probably raise you if 
they have anything better than a pair, on the 
theory that this is their chance to get even. Next 
time you draw one card they do not know what 
you have, which is just what you want. 

DRAWING TO NOTHING 

There are times when a player feels as if he 
would like to go in, but has nothing in his hand to 
draw to. The age throws away a lot of money 
indulging in this luxury of coming in on nothing, 
and many players yield to the temptation when 
they are the last to say and it is a good-sized pot, 
especially a jack-pot. 

One of the most common mistakes is holding a 
card to draw to, instead of taking five fresh cards. 
The card held is usually an ace or a king, instead of 
a smaller card, such as a ten or nine. The high 
card may be better in a jack-pot, when the object 
is to beat jacks at least; but in an ordinary pool, it 
must not be forgotten that there are other things be¬ 
sides pairs. If four cards are taken to a ten, there 
are chances for straights and flushes as well as 
pairs. It is more likely that you may get a straight 
if you hold up a ten, than if you hold up an ace, 
because there are five different straights that con¬ 
tain a ten, and only two that contain an ace. 



142 


PRACTICAL POKER 


The odds against getting a mate to an ace or a 
king by drawing four cards are 4 to i, while the 
odds against getting a pair of some kind by draw¬ 
ing five fresh cards are only to i. When the 
pack has been played with for some time, good 
hands which have been thrown up on the previous 
deals often stay together, especially if the cards are 
not thoroughly shuffled; and a player drawing five 
cards will sometimes hit upon one of these hands, 
or parts of two such hands. 

Monkey draws, to three-card flushes or straights, 
are not to be seriously considered as a possibility of 
the game, although they may be indulged in now 
and then when a player feels called upon to give 
back some of his winnings. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


143 


BETTING 


Before proceeding to a consideration of betting 
on and calling hands, the theory and principles of 
betting itself should be thoroughly understood. 

' The mistaken idea of many Poker players is, 
that they are betting against another player; where¬ 
as every bet is against the money on the table in 
the proportion of odds. All that you have to do 
with the other player is to judge whether or not he 
is more likely to win this money than you are. 

There is one principle in connection with betting 
which is very little understood. If you make a 
single bet upon any proposition, it makes very 
little difference to you what odds you lay or take; 
and it does not matter whether the odds are the 
right odds or not, because if you win you win, and 
if you lose you lose, and that is the end of it. But 
if you are going to bet upon the same kind of 
proposition a great many times, or with a great 
many people, a thorough knowledge of the odds is 
of the greatest importance; and, if you expect to 
win anything in the long run, you must always 
have these odds in your favour. 

This principle is very easily illustrated. Let us 
take a very obvious case first. You bet a man 
two to one, in pounds or dollars, that he will not 
toss a coin heads up. If he fails you win a pound, 





144 


PRACTICAL POKER 


and that is the end of it; but, if you proposed to 
bet him two to one on tossing a coin a hundred 
times, it would be absolutely impossible for you to 
win anything, because the odds are steadily against 
you. When the state of the case is so obvious, 
people will shrink from laying them, even for a 
“flier” on one event; yet they will unhesitatingly 
go into a bet when the odds are not so obvious 
as they are in tossing. When you buy a lottery 
ticket, what do you care whether the chances are 
300 to I against you, or 10,000 to i ? But the lot¬ 
tery people care a great deal, because they are in 
that business all the time, and against a great many 
people. If they did not have the chances in their 
favour, they could not exist. 

A former Earl of Yarborough used to bet any 
man at the Whist table 1,000 to i that he would 
hold some card higher than a nine. The men 
who took him on did not stop to haggle about the 
exact odd, because it was just a flier with them, to 
lose a sovereign or win a thousand. But the Earl, 
who was in the habit of offering this wager all the 
time, was very careful to have the odds in his 
favour, it being really 1827 to i against the event 
that he laid only 1000 to i against. 

You take a fancy to a certain horse in a race, 
and you make a bet with a friend that it will win. 
What do you care whether the exact odds on that 
horse are 17 to 3, or 6 to 5? But if you were a 
bookmaker, laying and taking hundreds of wagers 
every day on dozens of races, you would have to 





FOSTER ON POKER 


145 


Study the question of odds very carefully, or you 
would soon get the worst of it. 

You take a little flier at Monte Carlo with a 
hundred francs. What do you care about the odds 
against you being greater at one game than at the 
other? You will try your luck at the wheel for a 
while, and then at Rouge et Noir. If you win, you 
are satisfied with whatever the croupier gives you; 
if you lose, you can afford it, and you have enjoyed 
yourself in either case. With the Casino Com¬ 
pany, it is a very different matter; and they have 
studied the question of odds until they have re¬ 
duced it to an exact science. 

Poker is one of the games in which you have to 
do the studying of the odds, because you do not 
take a flier on one hand, but sit down to bet steadily 
hour after hour on a series of propositions which 
diflfer continually in the problem they present. 
If you do not thoroughly understand the chances 
of the game, and keep the odds slightly in your 
favour, you will inevitably get the worst of it, unless 
you have phenomenal luck. 

It is a curious fact, to which attention has been 
called by many writers on betting, that the more 
ignorant a person is of the chances against him, 
the greater the fascination the game seem to have 
for him. 

In several banking games it can be demonstrated 
that, if a person persists in playing against them, he 
must inevitably lose. The most striking illustra¬ 
tion of this that I know of is, that if ten men with ten 



146 


PRACTICAL POKER 


dollars each play Keno (which is the same as Lotto) 
for a dollar a card, and each of them wins ten 
kenos, not one of them will have a dollar left. 
The explanation of this is that the bank takes 
out 10 per cent.; and, as it gets a dollar on each 
keno, it must get a hundred dollars on the hundred 
kenos, which is all the money the ten players have. 
If one man played all the ten cards each time, he 
would constantly be paying ten dollars to win 
nine; but, as he plays only one card, and occa¬ 
sionally wins nine dollars for a dollar, he does not 
see this. 

If a person is foolish enough to play against a 
mathematical impossibility of winning, he must, as 
Winterblossom says, be either unconscious of the 
fact that he is playing against an impossibility, or 
he must be crazy. The more infatuated he is with 
such a game, the more ignorant must he be of the 
mathematical aspects of the case. All games of 
chance owe their fascination to the manner in 
which the ease of winning is presented to the 
player’s imagination, and the difficulty of winning 
is concealed from his reasoning powers. 

Very few persons realise what a small percentage 
of advantage is absolutely sure to win in the long 
run. If the thing is put to them in such a way 
that they can see the percentage staring them in 
the face, they will refuse to play the game for 
any length of time; but if they do not see it, or 
cannot understand it, it is almost impossible to 
prevent them from playing. This is the secret 







FOSTER ON POKER 


147 


of the success of all banking games, such as 
those at Monte Carlo, and is the magnet in all 
“get-rich-quick” concerns. 

Suppose a man offered to throw two dice against 
j your two dice, a hundred times, betting you even 
j money on the higher throw each time. The game 
would not interest you, because you can see it 
is a perfectly even thing. Suppose that he then 
offered to bet you 2 to i that you could not throw 
i an ace with your two dice. The odds might 
tempt you to try your luck. You would naturally 
^ argue that, as two numbers must come up each 
time, and there are only six on the dice, it is a 
perfectly fair bet. But the fact is, that it is 14 to 11 
! against you every time you throw; and that, if you 
I throw a hundred times, you will lose 12 per cent, 
j of whatever amount you bet. 

I Suppose he bet you even money that you could 
I not tell whether the total of the two dice thrown 
1 each time would be under or over seven. You 
might try that for a while, not knowing that the 
odds were 21 to 15 against you every time you bet. 
Here the advantage is concealed. But suppose he 
had two dice which had fives on opposite sides, 
instead of a deuce opposite the five, so that there 
were 24 pips on each of his dice, while there were 
only the usual 21 pips on yours, would you bet on 
throwing higher than he threw ? You would think 
any person crazy who suggested such a thing, yet 
his advantage over you with these two crooked 
dice is not nearly so great as it was when you bet 
L 2 





148 


PRACTICAL POKER 


on under- or over seven, and is just about the same 
as when you bet on throwing an ace with two dice. 
You can see the crooked dice; you do not see the 
percentage in the game. 

There is no game in the world so full of these 
concealed percentages as Poker; and this is one 
of the secrets of its fascination, and one of the 
principal reasons why people continue to play it, no 
matter how often they lose. The chances of win¬ 
ning are so evident; the percentages against them 
are so cunningly concealed. 

Some players are suspected of cheating at Poker 
simply because it is observed that they so often 
have a hand slightly better than the one opposed 
to them—“just top it,” as they say. This continual 
but slight superiority is not due to any stacking of 
the cards, but to the player’s skill in availing him¬ 
self of the percentages of the game. 

Every first-class Bridge player keeps his eye on 
the score, in order to know exactly how manv 
tricks he must make to save or to win the game. 
Every first-class Poker player must keep his eye 
continually on the pool, in order to know exactly ) 
how many chips he can afford to risk on any given 
hand. 

But in order to know what he can afford to risk, 
a player must know what his hand is worth. Before 
the draw, with nothing to guide him in his estimate 
but the hand itself, he must go upon general princi¬ 
ples—such as that a pair of aces is so much above 
t'.ie average go-in hand, that it is probably the best 






FOSTER ON POKER 


149 


hand at the table; that, if he has a pair of tens, they 
are well worth drawing to if no one has raised 
the ante, and so on. What the value of his hand 
may be when it comes to betting for the pot, is a 
matter of judgment based on observation of what 
the others draw, and how they bet up their hands. 
This will be discussed in the next chapter. 

Most of the money lost at Poker is lost before 
the draw. 

The explanation of this is, that the players do 
not understand the percentage against them in 
given cases, and do not appreciate the importance 
of comparing their chances with the odds which the 
table bets against them. 

As already stated, every bet made by a player 
before the 'draw is a bet against the money on 
the table, and not against any individual player. 
Money once placed in the pool, no matter by whom, 
belongs to the table; so that if a player has himself 
contributed to the pool, as by putting up an ante 
in a jack-pot or coming in, he must regard that 
money as no longer his, but the table’s. It is a 
common but serious mistake to reckon upon chips 
you have already put up as still belonging to you, 
and that you are therefore bound to “protect” 
them by putting in more. This is one of the 
fallacies that cost the age so much money. If you 
have anted to draw cards, and are raised by some 
following player, it is not a question of paying more 
in order to protect your ante, but of whether your 
chances are good enough to justify your meeting 






PRACTICAL POKER 


15^ 

the raise. This question can be answered only by 
comparing your chances of improvement with the 
odds which the table is betting you. To do this 
intelligently, you must know what your chances are. 
An illustration will make this clear. Three men 
have come in, two chips each, making, with the 
blind, seven chips on the table. You have an 
average pair, and the odds against improving this 
pair are 2J to i. Will the table lay you odds of 2^- 
to I against improving ? If there are seven chips on 
the table, and it costs you two to come in, the table 
is betting you 7 to 2, which is 3 J to i; so of course 
you come in. If the blind makes good, there will 
be 4 to I on the table against your two chips. 

But you hold an inside straight. The odds 
against improving it are ii to i. Will the table 
bet you ii to i, even if the blind comes in? No. 
Then if you put up two chips to draw to your in¬ 
side straight, what are you doing? You are bet¬ 
ting II to 4 against yourself. You are accepting 
eight chips when you ought to get twenty-two. 
You are playing against loaded dice. 

Take another case. You are the third man to 
say, two liaving come in for two chips each, five 
chips on the table counting the blind. It will cost 
you two chips to draw to a four-card flush—that is, 
the table bets you 5 to 2. But the odds against 
getting a flush are 4i to i, and there should be nine 
chips on the table to justify your drawing cards. 
If you go in as it stands, you are betting 9 to 5 
against yourself. 





FOSTER ON POKER 


15 ^ 

In addition to this disadvantage, you cannot tell 
how much more it may cost you if some player who 
has still to say, perhaps the age, raises the ante. 
Suppose you put up two chips, and the age raises it 
ten, making sixteen in the pool. One of the others 
comes in, making it twenty-six. If you see the 
raise, the table is betting you 26 to 10, or about 
2i to I, when you should demand 4i to i. 

But, you say, if you fill the flush you win the 
pool. This is exactly where the fascination of the 
game shows itself. The chance of winning is so 
glaring; the odds against you are so obscure. Let 
us suppose that you get your flush as often as you 
should get it. What happens? We have already 
seen that no play can be sound for one time which 
would not be sound for all the time, if you are 
going to stick to the game; so we shall suppose that 
you were placed in exactly this position, not once, 
but fifty-five times. The probabilities being that 
you will fill your flush once in every 5J times, in 
10 of these times you would win the pool with it— 
260 chips. In the other 45 deals you would lose 
your 10 chips—that is 450, or 190 to the bad. 

Take a simpler case, one that is much more 
common. Two men come in, five chips on the 
table with the blind. The third man raises it ten, 
making fifteen on the table. You have a pair of 
tens, against improving which the odds are 2| to i, 
while the table offers you 15 to 12 only. Suppose 
you pay and draw. The one who raised probably 
has aces or two pairs to go with, and if you do not 




152 


PRACTICAL POKER 


improve you are beaten. If both of you improve, 
he will beat you three times as often as you will 
beat him, as has been shown in the chapter on 
coming in against openers in jack-pots. There is 
no reason why you should improve oftener than he 
does, or why you should improve and he should 
not; so that if you try the experiment, let us say 
forty times, you will win ten times, which will be 
150 chips, and you will lose thirty times twelve 
chips (360), or 210 to the bad. 

This refers to the state of the pool at the time 
you ante, of course. What may happen after the 
draw is another matter; but the weaker hand before 
the draw will get the worst of it after the draw, in 
the long run. 

The only reason that Poker players do not 
realise these facts is, because in most cases they 
are all in the same boat, and what one throws 
away in one pool by injudicious coming in, the 
others give him back by their equal want of judg¬ 
ment in other pools. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


I S3 


WATCHING THE DRAW 


No player can be required to tell how many 
cards he drew, and the dealer is not allowed to 
supply the information, except with regard to his 
own hand; so each player must watch the draw 
I for himself. 

The man with a good memory (which is another 
name for the power of attentive observation) has 
an immense advantage in Poker. Anyone who 
can remember distinctly the number of cards 
I drawn by those in the pool, will be able to form a 
very good idea of what they drew to, if their hands 
are shown in the call. A player should be on the 
alert during the draw, paying no attention to his 
own cards until his turn comes to decide. It may 
be rather difficult at first to keep the respective 
\ draws of three or four players in mind; but prac¬ 
tice will make it easy enough. If the practice is 
never begun, the habit will never be acquired. 

I was present at a Poker game once, in which 
one of the players with a king full was raised very 
heavily by a player who had drawn one card. 
That was before the days of small limits. The 
player with the king full spent several minutes in 
reviewing all the hands to which his opponent had 
drawn, what he had held in each case, and how he 
had bet them up—his idea being to form some 







154 


PRACTICAL POKER 


accurate judgment of what he now held. At the 
end of his deliberations, he threw his king full into 
the deadwood. 

Some draws need more careful watching than 
others, so that something may be learnt of the na¬ 
ture of the original hand. Three-card draws one 
need not pay much attention to, except to note 
which players are in the habit of coming in cn 
j very small pairs, or of making such freak plays as 
holding up an ace and a king. All two-card draws 
should be very carefully watched; and if it is found 
tliat a certain player always has three of a kind 
when he draws two cards, he should be marked. 

T 4 ie methods adopted by each player with re¬ 
gard to raising before the draw should also be 
carefully noted, because it may often be a nice 
question to decide whether the player w'ho has 
raised, but has not yet drawn, has simply a good 
pair, such as aces, or a much stronger hand. If 
you have observed that he has not raised on several 
occasions when he held aces to go with, it is more 
than probable that he holds better than aces when 
he does raise. Some players cannot help falling 
into the habit of playing upon a certain system; 
and once the key to that system is found, it is 
comparatively easy to read them. 

Some players become so expert in this matter of 
observation and memory, that they can tell very 
nearly what each other player holds by the manner 
in which he antes and draws cards. Curtis gives 





FOSTER ON POKER 


155 


this interesting example:—Six playing, A has the 
age; B, C, and D come in for two chips each; and 
E chips in with a pair of kings, the dealer passing 
out. The age makes good and draws three cards, 
B (the man under the gun) stands pat, while C 
draws two cards, and D three. 

It is evident to E that both A and D had pairs 
too small to justify raising the ante, and that C 
held up a kicker with a small pair, or he would 
have raised. B probably has a genuine pat hand, 
but did not like to raise, as he was the first to say, 
and was afraid of driving everyone else out. This 
being the situation, as E reads it, he splits his pair 
of kings and draws for a monkey flush, knowing 
that the only improvement to the kings which 
would be likely to win the pot from B would be to 
get a full hand, the odds against which are 97 to i, 
while the odds are only 23 to i against getting two 
cards to fill out his three-card flush. This play 
shows good judgment, based on observation of the 
draw, and knowledge of the respective probabilities 
of two different ways of drawing to the hand. It 
must be observed that, in this case, E is not dealing 
with any question of what it will cost him to try 
the experiment of drawing, as his ante is already 
up. The problem before him is, the best chance 
to beat B’s pat hand. 


¥ 







156 


PRACTICAL POKER 


CALLING AND RAISING 


After the draw, with all the information which 
it affords, each player’s estimate of the value of 
his own hand must be corrected by his inferences 
as to the value of the other hands to which he is 
opposed in the pool. Here is such a case:— 

B, the first man to say, has come in on aces 
without raising the ante. C came in, and then D 
raised it ten. Both the age and C stayed. A, the 
age, took three cards, and B got another pair with 
his aces, which would justify him in betting the 
limit, even against D, but for the fact that C, who 
did not raise, drew one card; and D, who did raise, 
took two only. This draw entirely changes the 
apparent value of B’s aces up, and to bet even a 
white chip on them would be useless, unless he was 
prepared to call a limit raised from D—perhaps 
from both C and D. 

Here is another case:—D, the fourth man to say 
in a jack-pot, opened it on three queens. B, who 
had already passed, was the only man to come in 
against him. B drew one card. D did not im¬ 
prove, but bet the limit on his three queens; where¬ 
upon B raised him the limit. It is now a nice 
question for D to decide whether B has filled a 
bobtail on which he could not open, but was willing 
to pay the limit to draw to, or is bluffing. It is 
useless for D to raise, because, if B is bluffing, he 




FOSTER ON POKER 


157 


will not see it; and, if he is not bluffing, he will raise 
in return. Should D call, or lay down his three 
queens? In the actual game he laid them down. 

Again, the dealer has three tens to go with, and 
raises the ante the limit; B, C, and D being already 
in for two chips each. The age raises back the 
limit, and the others all drop. The age takes one 
card only, and the dealer draws two without im¬ 
proving. He bets the limit, counting the age for 
two good pairs, and the age raises him the limit. 
It should now be evident to the dealer that the age 
has either filled, or was masking three of a kind 
from the first. In any case, it is evident that the 
age is not afraid of the dealer’s two-card draw after 
the raised ante. The dealer laid down his tens. 

It is a common saying that the hand that is 
good enough to call is good enough to raise; but 
this maxim must not be taken too literally in cases 
in which it is evident that the player will be ex¬ 
posed to a re-raise, which he might not be very 
anxious for. Here is a case:— 

C is one of three men to ante without raising, 
and the blind passes out. C gets a third eight to 
his pair; D and E also draw three cards. C bets 
the limit, and D drops; but E comes back the 
limit better. E has evidently improved, and must 
have assumed that C improved also. E would 
hardly raise a limit bet on two pairs; and C’s 
three eights are so near the average that, while 
they are good enough to call on, they are hardly 
good enough to raise on. 






158 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Curtis gives this example of a hand which is 
good enough to call, but not to raise:—In a jack¬ 
pot, C, the third man to say, had queens up, and 
opened it. The dealer raised him, and C saw the 
raise, all the others dropping out. C took one 
card, and filled. The dealer took three cards, 
showing that he had raised on a very strong pair, 
probably aces. C bet the limit, and the dealer 
raised him the limit, showing that he must have 
improved his aces, or he would hardly bet against 
the opener’s one-card draw. C raised again, and 
the dealer raised him. This led C to infer that 
the dealer had even better than three aces, probably 
an ace full, because the dealer must credit C with 
having improved. In such a position it would be 
foolish for C to raise again, and equally foolish to 
lay down his hand without calling, as the dealer’s 
hand might be a full, and yet smaller than a queen 
full. The dealer had four aces. 

Curtis gives this example of neither calling nor 
raising:—No one had raised the ante. A, the age, 
drew two cards only; B drew three cards, and made 
three fours; C. drew one; D and E drew three 
each, and F drew one. B bet a white chip on his 
three fours, to see what would happen; C dropped, 
showing that he had not filled his bobtail; D 
raised the limit; E, F, and the age, all saw it with¬ 
out raising it, waiting for B, who promptly threw his 
three of a kind into the deadwood. It was evident 
that either the man who bet the limit, or one of the 
three who called him, could beat a small triplet. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


159 


There is a good deal of judgment required in 
letting some other player make the running for you, 
instead of raising the bet yourself, and so attracting 
the attention of the table to the fact that you are 
probably the dangerous hand. This can be done 
only when you are pretty sure that someone else 
has a hand on which he will raise, otherwise you 
are wasting an opportunity. If you keep quiet 
until the proper moment comes, they may think 
you are just hanging on, because your hand is a 
shade too good to lay down. Here is an example: 

There were six at the table, but only four anted, 
A holding the age. These were the hands before 
the draw:— 



D 










i6o 


PRACTICAL POKER 


D raised ten chips; A, B, and C all saw it. A 
did not improve, B and D both got another pair, 
and C got a third jack. B bet a white chip, 
waiting for D. C bet a chip, knowing D would 
make the play; and D raised the limit. A and B 
both called, and then C raised the limit, forcing 
them all to call him. 

Had C bet the limit on the first round, everyone 
at the table would have known that he had im¬ 
proved enough to beat the age at least, whose 
one-card draw without re-raising marked him with 
two pairs at the lowest estimate. 


Here is another instructive example: there were 
six in the game, but two passed out after D came 
in. These were the hands before the draw, A 





FOSTER ON POKER 


i6i 


B did not raise the ante, because he was the 
first man to say. C did not raise, and D, having 
such a strong hand, thought it better to let E and 
F come in, if they would; but they dropped out. 
A raised the limit; B and C both saw it; and then 
D, believing his opportunity had come, raised the 
limit again. A, still confident of his high flush, 
raised once more; and B dropped out. C simply 
called, and D did the same. Many players would 
make the mistake of taking up the raising at this 
point with C’s hand. 

A stood pat, and C very cleverly did the same. 
D took two cards, and got a pair of treys to his 
three queens. C bet a white chip, confident that 
A would not call, even if D dropped out. D, sure 
that he had both pat hands beaten, bet a chip; 
and A, who knew he could beat any pat hand C 
might hold, bet the limit. C did not raise this 
bet, because he argued that D, who was a very 
good player, would not have wasted even a white 
chip if he had not been willing to stay in and play 
against the pat hands, if either of them raised. 

D did raise, and A began to lose confidence in 
his flush, and called. C, seeing that if he did not 
raise now the game was at an end, raised D the 
limit; and D, who had not paid much attention 
to C until now, raised him again, still sure he could 
beat a pat hand of any sort; but upon C’s re¬ 
raising him, D called. By his waiting game in the 
antes, and allowing A and D to bet up his hand 

M 









i 62 


PRACTICAL POKER 


for him as far as they would go, C won a pool 
containing thirty-three limits and ten white chips. 

Compare his play with the following. The 
four men left in were the dealer and three others. 
A had the first bet, as D dealt:— 



The man under the gun passed out; A anted, 

B anted, C raised it the limit, D re-raised the limit, 
and the age went out. A saw it with his aces up, ; 
but B dropped his four-card flush; C raised D, j. 
and D re-raised; whereupon A dropped out. Then 
C, instead of raising again, having no one but D f 
against him, called and drew one card, which was c 







FOSTER ON POKER 


163 

an ace; D standing pat. C then bet the limit, and 
D, feeling certain that C could beat a pat hand, 
laid down without even calling. 

In this case, C wins only ten limits and nine 
white chips, simply because he was in too great a 
hurry to play his hand himself. Had he not 
raised the ante at all, and simply called D’s raise, 
A would have drawn cards, and would have got 
the ace that C drew, making him an ace full; and 
C would have reaped the. benefit of two full hands 
fighting each other, and paying no attention to him 
until the last raise. 

One thing which will probably have as much 
influence as anything else on a player’s raising or 
calling, will be his idea of the kind of game he 
is playing against—that is, whether it is a liberal 
or a close game. Whichever it is, he must adapt 
himself to it. 

The disadvantage of playing a liberal game in 
close company is, that whenever you have the 
better hand you are called early; but when you 
have slightly the worse hand, you force your ad¬ 
versaries to win more money from you than they 
naturally would do if you were not so liberal. 

For instance: you have masked three of a kind 
by drawing one card against a one-card draw, and 
it is your first bet. You put up the limit—let us 
say, ten chips—and are immediately called by the 
age, who has aces up. Upon another occasion 
you have two pairs (aces up), and another player, 

M 2 





164 


PRACTICAL POKER 


who has drawn one card, bets ten chips. You 
raise him ten chips. In this case he is the one 
with three of a kind, and you practically force him 
to call you, if not to raise you, and so present 
him with twenty chips. In your position, being 
a close player, he would have called at once, and 
lost ten only. 

It is useless to argue that by raising with the 
better hand you win more, because you do not. 
You put more of your own money on the table, 
but the close player will not call you. That he wins 
less than a liberal player is also untrue, because 
he wins just as much as you do from other close 
players like himself, and loses less than you do, 
because he does not bet his hands so freely. 

The distinguishing characteristics of the close 
player are: a decided aversion to bluffing, a strong 
dislike to raised antes, and a rather over-anxiety to 
call at the first opportunity. He usually plays a | 
very dull and uninteresting game, and spends most 
of his time stacking up and counting his chips. 
Unless he has a great run of luck, he never wins 
any large amounts; but, on the other hand, he is 
seldom a heavy loser. 

The liberal player makes a lively game, and is j 
a terror to beginners and timid players. He goes 
into every pot, no matter what he holds. He gets 
so accustomed to going in on worthless hands, 
that when he gets a four-card flush or an interior 
straight, he immediately raises the ante on it. It ; 





FOSTER ON POKER 


165 

is his boast that no one can bluff him; and he will 
call anything, from a two-card draw that has raised 
the ante, to a four-card draw that has stood two 
raises in the betting. One of his chief amuse¬ 
ments is trying to bluff out pat hands, or make a 
pair of eights beat openers. Aces up is his idea of 
a strong hand, and he will usually stand about four 
raises on them. Both the close and the liberal 
player fall easy victims to the conservative player, 
who knows how to manage them and take advan¬ 
tage of their weak points; who knows how to get 
all there is out of any hand, and how to keep the 
percentage of the game constantly in his favour, 
whether he is in good luck or bad. 

As already stated, most of the money lost at 
Poker is lost before the draw; most of the money 
won at Poker is won by judicious betting after 
the draw. 







PRACTICAL POKER 


166 


MANNERISMS AND TALK 

There is nothing so necessary to a Poker player 
as self-control, especially in the matter of facial ex¬ 
pression. So well aware of this are some experts, 
that they never trust themselves to look at the cards 
they draw when they first receive them, because the 
whole table is watching them at that time. They 
prefer to wait until the players are watching some 
following draw. Many persons will bet a chip with¬ 
out looking, so as not to betray the true value of 
their hand, which they do not yet know themselves. 

A watchful adversary will draw inferences from 
the slightest movement, such as a quick nervous 
glance by the player at the number of chips he has 
left in front of him, as if to see how much he can 
bet on his hand; or a curious look round the table, 
as if to pick out the lucky man who will win the 
pot he has no hope for himself. Sometimes a half 
smile at the dealer, who has given him just the 
card he wants, will betray the hand. 

Many players betray themselves by their very 
effort to appear indifferent. Throwing down the 
hand on the table in front of them, as if they did 
not care anything about it, but snatching it up 
again instantly if anyone attempts to touch it. 
Getting ready a white chip, as if that was all they 
intended to bet, when they are really waiting for a 
chance to raise it the limit. Scratching the head, 
as if in doubt whether to call or drop, when they 
have really an invincible hand. 





FOSTER ON POKER 


167 


It is curious that some players, in their effort to 
cure themselves of a habit which they know betrays 
them, often fall into another habit which is worse, 
but of which they are unconscious. I knew a 
player once who had a habit of pulling his ear 
with his right hand when he had very good cards. 
To prevent himself from doing this, after his atten¬ 
tion had been called to it, he used to separate his 
cards, holding two or three in one hand and the 
rest of them in the other hand, so that his hands 
were both occupied, and he could not caress his 
ear. Had he done this with every hand, it would 
have been all right; but it was only when he felt 
the temptation coming on to pull his ear that he 
separated his cards; so whenever he held his cards 
that way after the draw, we used to pass out im¬ 
mediately, unless we could beat three aces. 

Sorting the hand, or sticking the fingers between 
a pair and the worthless cards, is a very bad habit, 
because it shows that the hand is worth sorting out 
—that it contains at least a pair. Discarding be¬ 
fore everyone has announced what he will do with 
the ante, is another very bad habit; because some 
following player, seeing you throw out three cards, 
will know you cannot have better than a pair, and 
that may influence him to raise you out. Even 
discarding before your turn, after all the antes are 
up, is unwise, as a player ahead of you who has 
not yet drawn may be influenced by what he sees 
you are going to draw. 

Nothing shows the expert Poker player so much 







PRACTICAL POKER 


168 


as his manner of looking at his cards. In the first 
place, he never picks up a hand or a draw without 
counting it on the table, face down. When he 
lifts his original hand, he does not spread it out so 
that any stool-pigeon behind him can see it, but 
holds the palm of his right hand completely over 
the face of the first card, and separates the others 
just enough to peep at the squeezer marks in the 
corners, like a man looking down between the 
leaves of an almost closed book. When he hfts 
his draw, he always places it under the cards 
drawn to; so that, when he lifts it from the table, 
the cards that were retained cannot be seen. 

There is a great deal of finesse in talking during 
the play of a hand, and the beginner should be on 
his guard against a fluent speaker who is always 
trying to “joUy” the game along. Although it is 
distinctly understood to be the rule that talk does 
not count in Poker, and that a player may say what 
he pleases without in any way affecting the play of 
another, there are frequent opportunities to drop 
remarks which will entirely mislead the adversaries, 
in spite of the fact that they should not pay any 
attention to them. 

A player in a jack-pot remarks, in a cheerful tone 
of voice, that he will have to open it. He is told 
that the pot is already opened. He knows this, 
but affects surprise, and says that if such is the 
case he will have to raise it. Had he simply put 
up his chips without any comment, no one would 
have paid much attention to him; but by his re- 





FOSTER ON POKER 


169 . 

marks he has created the impression that he had 
cards good enough to open a jack-pot, and also 
good enough to raise the opener. Let him carry 
out the scheme by standing pat, and it will take 
some courage for anyone to call him. 

Here is another case:—A is age, B comes in, and 
C has three fives to go with, but does not raise. 
The others drop out, and the age raises the ante the 
limit. B and C both stay, and the age draws three 
cards; B and C one only. They chip along to the 
age, who raises the limit, upon which B drops. C 
skims over his cards very deliberately, and remarks, 
as if to the player next to him, “It’s all a question of 
what his small pair is.” After some further hesita¬ 
tion, C raises the limit; and the age, who has aces 
and jacks, thinking C has two pairs also, as he drew 
one card, and probably aces up if the hand is to be 
judged by his remark, re-raises; but on C’s coming 
back again, simply calls. 

In this case C played on a certain theory from 
the start. He judged that the age had a high pair 
when he raised the ante, and he took the chance 
that he had not improved to three of a kind. 
Having made up his mind to play the age for two 
pairs, and not for threes, C is right, after drawing 
one card only himself, to raise every time he is 
raised; but if C had not determined from the first 
to play the age for two pairs only, his hesitation and 
his remark would have been useless. As it was, 
C’s remark undoubtedly got another raise out of A. 

Here is a variation of the same tactics:—B, the 





170 


PRACTICAL POKER 


man under the gun in a seven-hand game, being a 
liberal player, comes in on a pair of treys. All 
pass, until the dealer and the age are the only 
ones to say. B thereupon remarks, with apparent 
annoyance, “Just my luck for everybody to go out,” 
and then draws two cards and bets the limit. As 
usual with liberal players, he cannot conceal his 
pleasure at bringing off such a bluff, even if it wins 
only two antes, and he shows his hand. Later in 
the evening he made the same remark, under about 
the same circumstances, and was promptly called 
by two players; but this time he had three kings. 

One species of talk should be forbidden by 
penalty in any game, and that is expressing an 
opinion of any player’s hand while that player is 
still betting for the pool. 

For instance:—A has tlie age; B has drawn one 
card only without raising the ante, and bets a white 
chip. C, D, and the age are all in the pool. C 
lays down two pairs, face up, with the remark, “I 
wouldn’t call you if I had three eights.” This is 
unfair to B, because it gives those who have still to 
bet the benefit of C’s opinion of B’s hand, and may 
call their attention to something which C noticed 
that they overlooked. 

Silence, combined with a composed countenance, 
is, after all, more powerful as a weapon of attack 
than any talk. There is no player so much to be 
feared as the man who sees everything and says 
nothing, especially if he is one of those who seldom 
make good their own blind. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


171 


POSITION PLAY 


The skilful Poker player varies his game accord¬ 
ing to his position at the table with regard to the 
I dealer. Each position has its opportunities, which 
some persons call advg.ntages and disadvantages, 
j If thoroughly understood, they are a great help to 
a player, not only in guiding him as to his best 
course in any given position, but in showing him 
what other players are probably doing—not on 
account of their cards, but on account of their 
position at the table. 


THE AGE 

Almost everyone who writes on Poker seems to 
think that all a person needs is to have the age 
often enough, and he must win all the money at 
the table. Florence is the only one who disagrees 
1 with this general assumption of the value of the age. 
He says: “Everyone supposes it to be the best 
position at the table; yet, if anyone held the age all 
the time, he would be bound to lose, because he 
must put up one chip every time, and usually puts 
up another, whether he holds anything or not.” 

This is hardly true, as Florence would have dis¬ 
covered had he tried the experiment, and given 
one player the age all the time. It was tried for 
two months in a Cincinnati club; each player of 
a set of six taking turns to have the age for an 








172 


PRACTICAL POKER 


entire evening. . In fifteen out of eighteen sittings 
the age won, and five times he was the largest 
winner. By a curious coincidence, the man under 
the gun quit loser every time but once. 

Florence confuses the position with the bad 
play in the position, which is what loses the money, 
when it is lost. According to his own estimate of 
the time it takes to play the hands, a man would 
chip in only four times an hour as age. It is the 
temptation to come in on hands that are not worth 
coming in on, in any position, that costs the money. 

It is quite true that the age usually wastes more 
chips than any other position at the table; but 
these chips are not wasted because the position is 
a bad one, but because the play is bad. The chip 
put up for the blind is gone. Every player at the 
table is put under the same tax. The question for 
the age to decide is, would he draw to his hand 
if he did not hold the age, but could come in for 
one chip instead of two ? The temptation to come 
in because it costs only one chip, is something like 
^ being coaxed into a jack-pot against a big hand 
])y a cheap opening. 

Suppose that three men out of six had come in, 
and that you were the fourth to say, not being the 
age. Would you come in because it cost you 
only one chip instead of two; or would you come 
in because you had the cards to justify you in 
taking the odds that the table laid you, 7 to i ? 
If the first is your reason, it is a bad one; if the 
second, it is sound, age or no age. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


173 


The only possible difference to the age in calcu¬ 
lating the odds that the table lays him is, that if no 
one has raised the ante, he knows it cannot pos¬ 
sibly cost him any more to draw cards than the 
amount he puts up. No other player has this 
assurance, because any following player may raise 
the ante. If the ante has been raised, the age is 
never sure that some intervening player will not 
raise it again. A consideration of this point will 
show that the moment any player, not sitting next 
the age on his left, raises the ante, or the player on 
the age’s left straddles it, one of the advantages of 
the age’s position disappears. 

When the age has a good pair, he is in a very 
good position to raise the ante himself, if he wants 
to drive some of the others out. If he has a pair 
of aces, and a player on his right has already 
raised, the age can usually afford to re-raise on the 
probability that the player on his right is taking 
advantage of his own position, and raising on one 
good pair—no one else having raised. 

So general is the experience that the age comes 
in on anything or nothing, simply because he can 
come in cheaply, that it results in no one ever 
giving him credit for holding anything unless he 
raises the ante. This suggests to some good 
players that it is perhaps better not to raise when 
they have a good hand as age, leaving their oppo¬ 
nents in the belief that the age has nothing, and 
letting them bet up the pool until it is time for the 
age to step in and raise them. Even when the 







174 


PRACTICAL POKER 


age makes a suspicious looking draw, after having 
raised, no one attaches much importance to it. If 
four have come in without raising, and the age 
raises it, and draws one card, no one beheves he 
has anything better than a bobtail; and when he 
bets after the draw, everyone sets it down as a 
bluff. The age may even draw two cards, after 
having raised the blind, without fear of being cred¬ 
ited with anything better than a pair and a kicker, 
or a monkey flush. 

As a rule, it is bad pohcy for the age to draw 
two cards, unless he has been raised by some other 
player before the draw. If he makes a strong bet 
after such a draw, the player opposed to him will 
think he must have filled his monkey flush, or 
made a full hand out of his kicker, or some such 
luck. Three of a kind should be strong enough to 
win nine pots out of ten without drawing two cards 
to it, and it is better for the age to create the im¬ 
pression that he took a flier on a bobtail by raising 
the ante, than it is for him to leave his opponents 
with the suspicion in their minds that he has made 
a big hand by a two-card draw. 

The great weakness of most players in this posi^ 
tion is, putting up money to “protect” the blind. 
They look upon the chip they have been obhged to 
put up, as a sort of hostage to fortune, which they 
are bound to redeem, even at the expense of sacri¬ 
ficing a number of other chips. Take the average 
case of four men in a pool out of six playing, and 
suppose the age has a pair—the smallest pair, for 



FOSTER ON POKER 


175 


the sake of illustration—deuces. If he puts up a 
chip to draw to them, he has not much chance, 
even if the table is laying him 7 to i, because such 
a weak pair should improve to triplets to beat the 
average improvement of the three hands opposed 
to it; and the odds against that are 8 to i. 

Drawing to such hands as four-card flushes and 
straights is another matter, because, if they im¬ 
prove, they are so strong that they practically win 
the pool; but an improved pair of deuces may make 
you sorry that you got another pair with them. 

It seems to be one of the compensations of the 
game that, while no one believes the age has much 
of a hand, and so gives him a slight advantage over 
the other players at the table, the age himself 
throws away this possibility of gain by doing the 
very thing they credit him with doing, and coming 
in on nothing most of the time. 

There is one very strong point in favour of the 
position of age, and that is that he can get a great 
many supposed bluffs called. A play which has 
been carefully built up to look like a bluff, might go 
through without being called in any other position; 
but nearly everyone calls the age when there is the 
slightest suspicion of bluff about his play. For this 
reason the age should never bluff, but should create 
the impression of bluffing more than any other 
player. 

For some reason or other, everyone looks upon 
the age as his natural enemy, and feels as if he was, 
for the time being, granted some special privileges 




176 


PRACTICAL POKER 


which came very near being robbery. That is why 
they all play against the age, call his hands, and 
try to raise him out in the antes. If the age is 
clever enough to take advantage of their liberality 
in these matters, he may win a great deal of money 
that no other position at the table could win. 

THE DEALER 

The dealer has almost as many advantages as 
the age in the betting, and slightly more in the 
drawing, because the age has to draw first and the 
dealer last. It is of considerable advantage to 
know what each player will draw before you draw 
yourself, and it is also some advantage to see how 
several players bet up their hands before your turn 
comes. Another point in the dealer’s favour is, 
that after the draw many players will abandon their 
hands in preference to betting on them, if they fail 
to improve; so that the dealer knows pretty well 
how many will actually oppose him in playing for 
the pool. Many hands are thrown up on account 
of the number of players behind them, which, it 
held by the dealer or the age, would win the pool. 

Before the draw, the dealer should always raise 
with aces, and usually on kings. If the ante has 
already been raised, much will depend on how far 
from the dealer the raise was made. The farther 
from him on the right, the more likely it is to be 
from real strength; the nearer to him, the more 
probably for the purpose of driving out weak hands, 
or laying the foundation for a bluff. With more 




FOSTER ON POKER 


177 


than average strength, such as aces or two pairs, 
the dealer should re-raise, if the raise is close to 
him on the right; but with such a hand as three of 
a kind, it is often better to let the others come in, 
and do the betting after the draw, especially as the 
player who raises the ante will almost certainly 
make the play for you. 

FIRST BETTOR 

If the man under the gun has come in on pairs 
better than the average, such as jacks or tens, and no 
one has raised the ante, he can usually afford to bet 
a white chip to keep in the pool until he sees how 
things go, even if he has not improved. If he has 
improved, it is probably better to bet on the hand 
immediately, than to wait for someone else to raise. 

Betting a white chip on pairs above the average, 
such as kings or aces, is usually a weak game, 
because it gives the timid and the close players a 
chance to call on average hands, which may just 
beat yours; and it exposes you to a raise, which may 
be a bluff or may be from strength. As a rule, the 
first bettor will win more in the long run by getting 
calls for limit bets instead of for white chip bets, 
than he will lose by being raised out on an original 
limit bet. If he has the best hand at the table 
after the draw, he wins a limit bet or two. If he 
has not the best hand, he will certainly be raised by 
any player who holds better cards than those upon 
which the man under the gun is supposed to come 
in. The first bettor would then have either to 

N 









178 


PRACTICAL POKER 


1 


abandon his white chip, or see the Hmit raise. The 
argument of the beginner is, that by betting a white 
chip he gets off cheaply if anyone can .raise. The 
argument of the expert is, that he is usually bluffed 
out of his white chip, and would have won the pool 
had he bet the limit. 

Making the first bet is always a disadvantage, 
because it gives every player at the table an option. 
Each in turn can either throw up his cards, or call, 
or raise, and it is often extremely difficult to decide, 
when a player raises the first bettor, whether it is a 
bluff or not. 

My own personal experience has been, after 
trying both methods for a considerable length of I 
time, that if the man under the gun is going to bet ] 
on his cards at all, he may as well bet the limit, j 
just as if he had opened a jack-pot, unless he has ^ 
noted some one-card draw round the table which J| 
he would like to hear from first. The theory of I 
betting a white chip when you have improved, so M 
as to get a raise on any one who raises you, is let- J 
ting some one else do what you can do yourself. 

A white chip bet exposes you to the risk of a bluff 
raise from any one-card-draw hand, which would & 
probably have been laid down had you started * 
with the limit. i 

OTHER POSITIONS j* 

With a thorough understanding of the advantages 
and disadvantages possessed by the three princip^^J 
positions at the table—the age, the dealer, and th^B 




FOSTER ON POKER 


179 


first bettor—any intervening player should know 
pretty well what to do with his cards, remem¬ 
bering the general principle that the nearer he is 
to the dealer’s right hand, and the more players 
have passed out before him, the more valuable his 
hand becomes. 

Half-way round the table, for instance—that is, 
third man from the age with six playing—if the first 
bettor is in, it would be safer to call on any single 
pair; but if the first bettor is not in, and the next 
man has thrown up his cards, the limit should be 
bet on aces or kings, if there is nothing suspicious 
in the draw of the players who have still to say. 
With an improved hand, the necessity of betting on 
it yourself, instead of waiting for a raise, increases 
the nearer you sit to the dealer’s right hand. 

Curiosity is no excuse for bad play. Some 
persons tell you they want to find out how such a 
one plays his cards, what he drew to after raising, 
and so on. That can all be learnt if you will have 
a little patience. This is not the only hand the 
player is going to draw to in that way; if it were, 
your purchased experience would not be worth 
much to you. 

Calling because one has already put money in 
the pool is a serious error. Some persons have a 
strong dislike to making a bet on a hand, and 
then laying it down—a weakness which will be 
quickly taken advantage of by observant adver¬ 
saries. 

N 2 








i8o 


PRACTICAL POKER 


It may be objected by the beginner, that as so 
much of the play depends on inferences from the 
play of others, these inferences will all be false if 
those in the game do not know how to play. This 
is true; but if you cannot beat those who do not 
know how to play, you must know very little of the 
game yourself. The best way to learn (if that is 
your object) is to get into a game with the best 
players you know of, for the smallest stakes that 
they will play for. Playing with reckless or indif¬ 
ferent players will soon get you into careless habits 
yourself—habits which you may find it difficult to 
overcome when you find yourself in a hard game. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


i8i 


BLUFFING 


Bluffing is rapidly becoming a relic of the past, 
as the whole tendency of modern Poker is to make 
it more and more difficult. In the days of straight 
Poker, when there was no draw to guide the judg¬ 
ment of the other players’ hands, and no discard 
to betray your own, bluffing was a great weapon 
in skilful and daring hands. The successful bluffer 
was the top-notch Poker player in the old days, and 
many a fairy tale is told of two deuces driving out 
three aces by betting something less than a milhon 
on the deuces without as much as the quiver of an 
eyelash. In all the lies about bluffing that have 
been published, I have never seen one in which 
the bluffer held an average pair, such as jacks or 
queens. It is always deuces, just as all the niggers 
that were bet “before the war” were thrown into 
jack-pots, although jack-pots were not invented 
until many years after slavery was abolished. 

That the bluff is inherent in human nature, and 
that bluffing was always an attractive element in 
any game belonging to the Poker family, is evident 
from Seymour’s description of its fascinations two 
hundred years ago:— 

“The endeavour to impose on the judgment of 
the rest who play, and particularly on the person 
who chiefly offers to oppose you, by boasting or 
bragging of the cards in your hand. Those who. 







i82 


PRACTICAL POKER 


by fashioning their looks'and gestures, can give a 
proper air to their actions as will so deceive an un¬ 
skilful antagonist, that sometimes a pair of fives, 
treys, or deuces in such a hand, with the advantage 
of his composed countenance and subtle manner of 
over-awing the other, shall out-brag a much greater 
hand and win the stakes, with great applause and 
laughter on his side from the whole company.”. 

This little quotation shows that one very common 
Poker fault is as old as the hills; showing a hand 
which has successfully bluffed out a stronger one. 

The small-limit game, and the introduction of 
the jack-pot, have practically killed bluffing as a fine 
art. In the case of the jack-pot, it is curious that 
it should be so, because it is in the jack-pot that 
the player has the most at stake, having been com¬ 
pelled to come in for more than the usual ante. 
These pots should be his best chance to get his 
money back by bluffing, if his hand is not strong 
enough to win on its merits. As it is, the jack-pot 
is simply a lottery, in which the best hand wins, 
and all are compelled to pay it, whether they will 
or no. It is practically impossible to bluff in a 
jack-pot, except on rare occasions, when the draw 
or the play so shapes itself as to make the oppor¬ 
tunity, because of the willingness of someone to 
call for the small proportion that his call bears to 
the whole pool. 

If the small-limit game had not accompanied 
the advent of the jack-pot, bluffing might have 



FOSTER ON POKER 


183 


survived. In table stakes the bluff is still possible, 
or in any game in which the limit is at least fifty 
times the ante. But the general run of modern 
players have not the nerve to play such a game. 
With a shilling ante, half-crown limit, the bluff is a 
freak, and the player who makes one ought to be 
ashamed of himself, even if he brings it off. 

When the limit is so small in comparison with 
the blind or ante, the game becomes what is known 
as “show-down,” because there is no variety in the 
play of the hands. If a person will pay as much 
to draw to a monkey flush as he will pay to draw to 
three aces, there is nothing to be learnt from his 
ante. If he will put up as much on a pair of tens 
as he will on a straight flush, there is not much to 
be learnt from his bet. If a player will see a limit 
ante merely to satisfy his curiosity as to what he 
can draw to an ace or a king, how can you expect 
to stop his curiosity with regard to your hand by 
betting the limit as a bluff ? 

' In spite of all these considerations, people will 
bluff. They seem to think they are not playing 
Poker unless they bluff occasionally, just as people 
will not believe they are playing Whist unless they 
can make a freak finesse every now and then. 

Those who will insist on indulging in the expen¬ 
sive luxury of bluffing in a small-limit game, should 
keep the following general principles in mind:— 

The greater the number of players that have 
made a bet, or had a chance to do so, the greater 






184 


PRACTICAL POKER 


the opportunity for judging whether or not the 
bluff will succeed. For this reason, the nearer 
the player is on the right of the age or the dealer, 
the better his position for bluffing. This advan¬ 
tage, like every other, has its compensation in the 
fact that the players expect more bluffs from that 
quarter, and call them more freely. 

The fewer players there are in the pool, the less * 
chance that the bluffer wall be caught. 

The more the indications of the previous play, 
such as the ante and draw, point to the probability 
that a player has a strong hand, the more likely it 
is that he can make the other players think he 
really has it. For this reason, it is most important 
that a player should never bluff after the draw, 
unless his play before the draw has been calculated 
to give an impression of strength. 

The less money there is on the table, the easier 
it is to steal it by bluffing. 

Bluffs on absolute weakness against probably 
strong hands are not nearly so likely to succeed as 
bluffs on moderate strength against hands which 
are only a little stronger. A pair of jacks are much 
more likely to bluff out a pair of kings, than a pair 
of deuces are to bluff out aces up. 

All bluffs made on weakness are ridiculous if 
there is a man in the pool who makes a practice 
of calling everything. When opposed to such a 
player never bluff; but pretend that you are bluff¬ 
ing by making big bets on hands slightly above 
the average, such as pairs of aces or kings. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


185 


The most dangerous time to bluff is when there 
is a good deal in the pool, because the largest 
amount that you can bet in a small-limit game is 
such a small percentage of the whole pot, that 
some player is almost certain to call you as a 
sort of ten-to-one shot. Any professional gambler 
will tell you that most of the money won at Poker 
is not won on the big hands in big pots; but on 
moderate, or what they call “broken hands”— 
that is, by the continual winning of the small 
pots in which nobody seems to be particularly 
interested. ■ These are the pots that should be 
bluffed for, not by betting on nothing, so much 
as by betting a great deal more on the hand 
than would be justifiable if the pot were a good 
one. 

Suppose six play, and four come in. The first 
bettor drops out after the draw; the next man chips, 
and looks bored; the third man to say has a pair 
of tens, and bets the limit on them. The pool is 
immediately pushed over to him, and the cards 
gathered for a new deal. No one cares what he 
had, as he wins nothing but a few antes; and the 
second man, who held jacks, has not the slightest 
idea that he might have made money by calling. 
Sometimes a player will suspect this limit bet for 
such a small pool is a bluff; but such players 
usually make the mistake of calling with a small 
pair, such as eights, and the supposed bluffer, 
although he has no hand to speak of, has enough 
to beat the caller. 





i86 


PRACTICAL POKER 


It must never be forgotten that a bluff of any 
kind is based on the supposition that no one has 
a hand strong enough to justify calling what the 
bluffer pretends he has. 

To illustrate: A intends to bluff, and raises the 
ante before drawing two cards to a pair of sixes and 
an ace. After the draw he bets the limit. What 
he .is betting on is, that having, pretended he had 
three of a kind all the time, no one at the table 
will have three of a kind to call him with. 

Now, if A’s judgment of the situation is cor¬ 
rect, and no one has threes, the only player who 
is likely to call him is one who has not a hand to 
justify calling three of a kind, but who suspects a 
bluff. This player usually has a pair of some kind 
about average, and when he suspects a bluff, he 
calls it upon the assumption that the bluffer has 
drawn to a monkey flush, or something of that 
kind, and has nothing at all. Why people .should 
always take it for granted that a suspected bluffer 
has nothing, would be rather difficult to explain; 
but such is undoubtedly the case. 

Good players often take advantage of this fact, 
and build up a most palpable bluff, with a pair of 
kings or queens in their hands, knowing that they 
are more likely to get a call from a weak hand, if 
they can pretend to be bluffing, than if they simply 
bet on the average value of their cards. This 
might be called bluffing that you are bluffing, or a 
bluff bluff. When the time for it is well judged, it 
is certainly the most successful of all. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


187 


The age is the best position in which to try this 
experiment, because everyone at the table is prone 
to think that the age must be bluffing if he bets 
high, and someone is sure to call with a moderate 
pair, such as jacks or tens. With anything better 
than a pair, they would raise. 

The chief objection to any form of bluffing is, 
that it gives every player at the table an option for 
which he pays nothing. If he has a poor hand, he 
can lay it down; if he has a good one, it pays him 
a premium on it, to which he is not entitled. In 
this respect, bluffing is very much like betting 
against a man’s own trick. It is a well-known 
principle in betting, that if a man makes a proposi¬ 
tion that he can do a certain trick, which seems 
impossible, and you bet he cannot do it, putting 
up your money, if he is lying, he will back down; 
but the moment he puts up his money, your money 
is gone. It is, therefore, clearly impossible for you 
to win his money; but very easy to lose your own. 
That is the way with the bluffer. He puts up his 
money on the proposition that you are afraid to call 
him. The moment your money is up, his is gone. 

When the bluffer has made his bet, and is called, 
there is nothing for it but to show the hands 
to the board. But suppose he is raised? Two 
courses are open to him: to raise again, or to lay 
down this hand; and which he does must depend 
on his opinion as to whether he is being bluffed 
in turn by the player, who thinks he is bluffing; 
or whether he has “struck a snag,” as-they say. 





PRACTICAL POKER 


188 


and run foul of a better hand than he expected 
in that locality. 

The first impulse of the raised bluffer usually 
is to stick to his guns, and raise again. To call 
would be foolish. It takes nerve to raise a raise 
when you are bluffing, but most players believe it 
is worth the trial. The true gambler dislikes to 
acknowledge detection and defeat, by depositing 
his cards upon the deadwood, without one shout 
of defiance before he dies. 

This raising the bluffer works both ways, and 
the one who suspects a bluff may find himself mis¬ 
taken. It may also happen that, while one player 
is arranging to bluff off the others, one of his in¬ 
tended victims is laying plans to bluff him. Here 
is an example of such a case:— 

A had the age, B and C passed out; but D, E, 
and F came in without raising; whereupon the 
age raised it the limit. E and F stayed. The age 
drew two cards, E and F three each. E bet a 
white chip; and F, knowing that the age would 
raise whether he was bluffing or not, chipped along, 
and waited. A did raise, and E dropped out. F 
raised back again, although he had only a pair of 
sevens; and A laid down his cards. 

F’s reading of the situation in this case was cor¬ 
rect—that, with three of a kind in his hand origin¬ 
ally, A would most likely have masked it, and 
drawn one card only, after raising the ante; or, 
if he did intend to draw two cards only, he would 



FOSTER ON POKER 


189 


not have raised the ante at all, having a hand 
strong enough to win in the betting after the draw. 

Some persons make bets which are so like bluffs 
that they will almost certainly be called; and, 
therefore, players of good judgment never really 
bluff when they intend making such a bet, but use 
the occasion to make a good haul on a fair hand. 
Suppose A has the age; B, C, D, and E all come 
in, the dealer passing out. All draw three cards 
but E, who takes two only. They chip along to 
E, who bets the limit. Now, E cannot have had 
three of a kind before the draw, or he would have 
raised the ante with three antes and the blind 
already in the pool. His bet looks like a bluff; 
but, at the same time, E may have been laying low, 
knowing that he was in a good position to bet up 
his hand after the draw; or he may have made a 
very lucky draw with his two cards. Someone of 
the four in the pool against him will be almost sure 
to call him; therefore, a good player would not 
make a bluff under such circumstances, but would 
always bet in this way, if he thought his hand 
was slightly better than any other at the table; 
but not so strong that he could afford to invite 
a raise, or risk being called on to show his hand 
for a w'hite chip. Such a hand at aces up, having 
held up a kicker just to vary his draw, would be 
a good one. 

There are some bluffs which might be called 
half-breeds, because the pretence is not in the 






190 


PRACTICAL POKER 


betting, but in the draw. Raising the limit, and 
standing pat on one pair, is an example. The 
bluff is in standing pat, not in betting the limit; 
whereas all full-blooded bluffs are bets pure and 
simple. Hesitation over the draw is another half- 
breed; pulling out a card, laying it on the table, 
and saying, “Give me—wait a minute,” and then 
putting the card back in the hand, taking out 
two with a great show of final determination, and 
saying, “No, I’ll draw to the full strength of my 
hand;” the strength referred to being actually a 
pair of kings and a four spot. I have seen a 
player bring off this style of bluff three times in 
one evening, drawing two cards to nothing at all. 

Many playei^ imagine that a very good oppor¬ 
tunity for a bluff is, that, after winning two or 
three pools in succession, they can probably steal 
the next one on their reputation for being in luck. 
This shows a want of knowledge of human nature, 
because nine persons out of ten will think it so 
improbable that the same man should have the 
best hand out amongst six players four times in 
succession, that they will feel sure he is trading 
on his reputation, and call him, especially if he 
stands pat. 



FOSTER ON POKER 


191 


LIMITS 


Closely connected with the question of bluffing 
is that of the limit. The small limit stops bluffing 
more than it stops anything else. That it stops 
losses, or that a small-limit game is a cheap game, 
is a popular fallacy, but a fallacy which is too 
deeply rooted to be overthrown by writing about it. 
The man who has a run of bad luck in a small- 
limit game cannot possibly get even on one or two 
good hands, for the simple reason that he loses 
nearly as much on each of his poor hands as he 
can win on a straight flush, if he g^s it. In a big- 
limit game, or table stakes, on the contrary, one 
good hand will recoup the loss of forty antes. The 
larger the limit in proportion to the ante, the 
greater the chance to bluff, although the limit is 
not usually extended for that purpose. 

The usual reason for fixing upon a certain limit 
is to accommodate the game to the means of the 
players engaged, just as the points in games like 
Bridge are fixed. The basis of this calculation is 
usually the amount which it is possible to lose 
during a run of very bad luck. What it is possible 
to win does not enter into the question at all, for 
the simple reason that, if you sit down to play with 
five pounds, or with fifty dollars, in your pocket, 
that is all you can lose; but you may win all the 









192 


PRACTICAL POKER 


money at the table if you do not get cold feet. 
If it hurts you to lose as much as five pounds, you 
must play in a smaller game. 

Taking the average at about twenty hands an 
hour, with an ante of two white chips, you going in 
four times out of six and losing all the time, you 
will lose 160 white chips in antes alone if you play 
for six hours. Add to this the times you will bet 
on a hand, as an offset to the times you will win a 
trifling pot, and you may take it as a safe estimate 
that you should not sit down to play unless you 
can afford to lose 200 white chips, whatever their 
value may be, the blind being one white chip to 
call two. 

Any player with a limited capital, who knows 
that one or two unlucky hands will break him 
cannot play his game. His mind is not free, his 
courage is tied do-wn, and he is continually making 
the mistake of under-playing his hands for fear of 
losing what little money he has, instead of over¬ 
playing them in the hope of getting more capital 
when he has the chance. It is a well-known 
principle that the value of a sum of money to any 
person varies inversely as his whole fortune; there¬ 
fore, if you have only twenty chips left, it hurts you 
to think of calling a suspected bluff of ten; but if 
you have two hundred, you can well afford to take 
the chance. 

Those who play all the time take as a basis of 
their calculation for the limit the amount they can 



FOSTER ON POKER 


193 


afford to spend on Poker as an amusement in a 
, year. But it is against human nature to figure on 

' losing for a whole year, or even the greater part of 

I it, in a game which you go into for the special 
purpose and with the strongest hopes of winning. 
The more sensible way, and the most common, is 
to ask yourself what you can afford to lose at a 
I sitting; and if you lose it at that sitting, or at 
several, to quit the game for a time, but to keep 
on as long as your capital lasts. Borrowing 
money or running into debt to play beyond your 
means, on the theory that as you have had such 
I bad luck it must turn, and you must win next 
I time, has led many persons into very serious 
I trouble. 

Blackbridge recommended those who played all 
the time to divide the amount they could afford to 
lose in a year by the number of times they would 
probably play in the year, and make one-fourth of 
that the limit of the betting. To take a very 
common case, suppose you intend playing twice 
a week, which is about a hundred times a year. 
Turn the number of dollars you can afford to lose 
into cents, and one-fourth of them will be your 
limit in Poker. 

As an example of how this plan of Blackbridge’s 
would work out:—Suppose a man says he can 
j afford to lose two hundred a year at Poker without 
I hurting himself. Call it two hundred cents, and a 
fourth of it is fifty-cent limit, On the same plan a 
Q 









194 


PRACTICAL POKER 


man who can afford fifty pounds a year should play 
half-crown limit. 

Penny ante and half-crown limit would make a 
very good game after the draw, but shilling ante 
and half-crown limit is show-down. The tendency 
is consequently towards making the pot bigger be¬ 
fore the draw, so that the play of the hands after 
the draw shall be little more than a weeding-out 
process, those which do not improve throwing 
down, and those which do showing after one or 
two raises at the most. 

Players who have only a certain amount to 
spend on Poker in a year should remember that, if 
they add considerably to their capital by a run of 
luck, this additional capital should be preserved in 
order to meet possible reverses on other occasions. 
If a player wins largely to-day, and spends all his 
winnings to-morrow, a run of ill-fortune next week 
may leave him without the means to play again for 
some time. Had he kept his Poker purse intact, 
he would have been just as well off after his run of 
bad luck as he was when he began to play. 





FOSTER ON POKER 


195 


POKER CALCULATIONS 

Every Poker player is more or less interested in 
the chances of the game, especially after he has 
learnt how much a knowledge of these probabilities 
may influence his play. 

As a rule, experience would supply the infor¬ 
mation which is derived from calculation, if a per¬ 
son had time enough to extend his experience to 
all possible cases, and were industrious enough to 
annotate and compare the results. As it is, ex¬ 
perience usually suggests that something is wrong 
—arouses a suspicion in the player’s mind—and 
calculation either confirms his opinion or corrects 
it, according to whether the facts observed are 
normal or abnormal. This is what occurred when 
straights were first introduced. 

Human nature is full of strange prejudices on 
the subject of probabilities, and many writers have 
gone astray when they touched upon the subject 
of chance. Blackbridge, the earliest writer on the 
game of Poker, falls into the most astonishing 
errors when he comes to write of probabilities. 
He never believed that flushes were really filled as 
often as calculation said they should be, and the 
explanation he offered was, that the player’s having 
already received more than his share of one suit, 
such as hearts, makes it much more improbable 
o 2 







196 


PRACTICAL POKER 


that he will get another heart in the draw, than that 
a player who had no hearts in his original hand 
would draw one. 

This is another form of the old fallacy called 
^‘maturity of the chances,” the theory of which 
is, that because a thing has happened six times 
in succession, it is unlikely to happen a seventh. 
There is something in human nature which makes 
men willing to bet odds that it will not happen a 
seventh time, although'both calculation and experi¬ 
ence have proved, time and time again, that having 
happened six times it will happen the seventh just 
as often as not. It is very curious that those who 
believe that there must come a change in such 
matters as these, hold exactly the contrary belief 
when it comes to what they call “runs of luck,” 
and that they will push their luck when they are 
“in the vein,” in the full confidence that it will con¬ 
tinue in one way because it has started in that way. 

All Poker calculations are made by the use of 
certain simple formulas, which, once mastered, will 
enable any person to make or verify any Poker 
problem for himself. 

All calculations of Poker probabilities are ex¬ 
pressed in fractions. The “chance” may be either 
for the event or against it; the “probability” is 
always for it. What we call the “odds” is the 
difference between the numerator and the de¬ 
nominator of our fraction of probability. 

In these fractions, D, the denominator, is always 



FOSTER ON POKER 


.197 


the total number of events possible; and N, the 
numerator, is always the number of events which 
would be favourable to the desired result. If five 
men are in a jack-pot, and you want to find A’s 
chance of winning it, D will be the number of 
things that can happen (five), because any one of 
the five players might win it. That A wins it is one 
out of these five chances, so the fraction is and 
by deducting N from D we get the odds, 4 to i, 
against his winning it. 

The first and most important denominator that 
we must find for Poker calculations, is the total 
number of hands of five cards, each hand different 
from the other, which itds possible to get out of a 
pack of fifty-two cards. 

This is found by multiplying together the num¬ 
bers from 52 to 48, a card, less in the pack each 
time, and then multiplying together the numbers 
from I to 5, a card more in the hand each time, 
thus:— 

52 X 51 X 50 X 49 X 48 = 311,875,200 
iX2X3X4X5= 120 

The upper figure is then divided by the lower, 
the whole process being expressed in this manner:— 


52 . 51 . 50.49.48 
I . 2 . 3. 4. 5 


2,598,960 


That this method must be correct can be shown 
by taking a simpler proposition, and calculating it 










PRACTICAL POKER 


198 

in the same way. For instance, if you have four 
things, such as aces, how many ways can you get 
them, two at a time? Beginning with the figure 4 
for the aces, just as you began with the 52 for the 

whole pack, you have = 6. This is easily 

proved by laying out the four aces in a square— 


9 ? 


© 





0 


when it will be at once evident that each of the 
four sides and each of the two diagonals will make 
a totally different pair, showing that the answer, 6, 
is correct. 

The rank of all Poker hands is found by means 
of this denominator, which we have found to be 
2,598,960, and which we shall always call D. In 
order to find out how many hands of a certain class 
it is possible to hold, as compared with hands of 
another class, we must find out how many of each 
we could get out of the pack, and call the numbers 
N. It is by this process that it was demonstrated 
that straights should rank higher than three of 
a kind. 













FOSTER ON POKER 


199 


STRAIGHT FLUSHES 

To begin with, the best of all hands—the straight 
flush—as the ace may be either the top or the 
bottom of a sequence, it is evident that ten different 
straights are possible, the highest card being any¬ 
thing from an ace to a five, and the lowest anything 
from a ten to an ace. As these straights may be 
in any one of the four suits, there must be forty of 
them in the pack, and our fraction of probability is 
therefore:— 

N 40 I 

D 2,598,960 64,974 

Therefore the odds against getting a pat hand, 
with a straight flush in it, are 64,973 to i. 

FOUR OF A KIND 

The four of a kind may be of any denomination 
from deuces to aces, so there are 13 different 
fours. But no matter which of these you hold, 
you must have with it an outside card, which must 
be one of the 48 other cards in the pack; and, as 
there is no reason why it should be one any more 
than another, there must be 48 times 13 = 624 
different ways of getting a hand with four of a kind 
in it. Therefore:— 

N 624 _ I 

D 2,598,960 4165 

So the odds against getting four of a kind pat 
must be 4164 to i. 








200 


PRACTICAL POKER 


FULL HANDS 

We can get any three of a kind from four of the 

same kind in — = 4 different ways. This is 
1.2.3 

evident from the fact that any one of the four 
cards—heart, club, diamond, or spade—^may be the 
missing card in our three of a kind. As there 
are 13 sets of four cards each from which to select 
three of a kind, there must be 13X4 = 52 differ¬ 
ent ways of getting three of a kind of some sort. 

As the pair to be held with the triplet cannot 
be of the same denomination, having selected our 
triplet, we have 12 other sets of 4 cards each from 
which to get the pair that is to fill the hand. As 
we have already seen, in the illustration of the 
four aces, we can get a pair from any of these 
12 sets in 6 different ways; therefore 12 X 6 = 72. 
If we now multiply these possible pairs by the 
possible triplets, we have 72 X 52 = 3744 possible 
full hands. Therefore:— 

N 3744 _ 

r> 2,598,960 694 

Then the odds against getting a pat full are 
693 to I. 

FLUSHES 

This calculation is very similar to that for the 
total number of hands possible in the whole pack, 
except that, instead of calculating for all four suits 





FOSTER ON POKER 


201 


together, we take only one suit of 13 cards, and 
write the formula thus:— 




As this is correct for any of the four suits, we 
must multiply the result by four, 1287 X 4 = 5148. 
But among these flushes will be 40 straight flushes, 
which we have already found; so that N is reduced 
to 5108, and we have:— 


N 5108 
D 2,598,960 


= nearly. 


509 


Therefore the odds against getting a pat flush 
are 508 to i. 


STRAIGHTS 


It has already been shown that there are ten 
different straights possible; but, as the cards in the 
ordinary straight may be of different suits, it is 
evident that, if we determine the denomination of 
the first card, it may be any one of four suits; and 
the second card of the sequence may also be any 
one of four; and so on to the fifth. So the number 
of different ways in which we might get a straight of 
the same denomination of cards, say from the queen 
to the eight, must be 4X4X4X4X4 = 1024. 
As there are 10 different sequences, there must be 
10 X 1024 = 10,240 altogether. But we have already 







202 


PRACTICAL POKER 


found and calculated 40 which were both sequence 
and flush, which must be deducted, leaving:— 

N 10,200 I 1 
--=-nearly. 

D 2,598,960 255 

Therefore the odds against getting a pat straight 
of any kind are 254 to i. 


THREE OF A KIND 


We have already calculated that three of a kind 
may be got in 52 different ways. Leaving out of 
the question the fourth card of w^hichever de¬ 
nomination we select for the triplet, we have 48 
other cards which may be used to fill out the hand, 
and we have already seen that we get these in 
48.47 

-= 1128 different ways. As each of these 

1.2 

ways can be combined with any of the 52 ways for 
holding the triplet, we have 1128 X 52= 58,656 
altogether. But as these 48 other cards will make 
a great number of pairs, we must deduct all the full 
hands, which we have- already found to number 
3744, leaving us:— 


N 54,912 
D 2,598,960 


— nearly. 
47 


So the odds against getting three of a kind pat 
are about 46 to i. 

The first calculations of the probabilities of the 
various Poker hands were made by Dr. Pole, in 
response to a suggestion by “Cavendish” in the 





FOSTER ON POKER 


203 


Field, March 28th, 1874, that he should under¬ 
take the task. Dr. Pole responded to this by 
publishing both his methods and his results in 
the Field, April nth and April i8th, 1874; and, 
as usual with such matters, they were generally 
accepted as correct, and have been copied and 
quoted by writers on Poker for thirty years. 

Some serious errors in these calculations of Dr. 
Pole’s were pointed out by Lieut. William Hoffman, 
U.S.N., of Fort Concho, Texas, in a letter to the 
Spirit oj the Times, New York, dated May 23rd, 
1874. In calculating the probability of triplets. 
Dr. Pole reckoned for 49 cards outside the three 
of a kind, which made his result include all four-of- 
a-kind hands, as well as fulls. But when he came 
to deduct the number of four-of-a-kind hands 
already found, he overlooked the fact that he had 
selected his triplets in four different ways, but 
deducted them in one way only; hence his result 
of N 56,784, which is exactly three times 624 too 
much. This is only another example of the 
well-known truth that the difficulty is not in the 
process of calculation, but in the statement of 
the proposition. 

TWO PAIRS 

The simplest method of calculating this com¬ 
bination is that given by Philpots. As every four 
cards of the same denomination will make six 
different pairs, and as any of these six can be 
combined with any six of a different denomina- 









204 


PRACTICAL POKER 


tion, we have 6 X 6 = 36 different ways of getting 
any pre-determined two pairs, such, as kings and 
deuces. As there are thirteen denominations to 
select from, we can get two different pairs from 

I -7 12 

them in ^ = 78 different ways. In addition 

to these there will always be 44 outside cards of 
different denomination from either of the two 
pairs, to fill out the hand; so we get 36 X 78 X 44 
= 123,552 different hands containing two pairs. 
Therefore:— 

N 123,552 I 


21 


nearly. 


D 2,598,960 
So the odds against getting two pairs pat are 
about 20 to I. 

ONE PAIR 


In this calculation also Dr. Pole and his fol¬ 
lowers have gone astray. Dr. Pole arrived at his 
published results by a very complicated and quite 
unnecessary process. The method adopted by 
Philpots is much simpler. 

As six different pairs can be made out of each 
one of the thirteen denominations in the pack, 
there must be 6 X 13 = 78 different ways of get¬ 
ting a pair out of a pack of 52 cards. But in order 
to complete the hand, there must be three other 
cards of different denomination from the pair, 
and also different from one another. The pair 
having been determined upon, there are 48 other 
cards in the pack from which to select the three 
outside cards in the pair hand. 





FOSTER ON POKER 


205 


Having determined, for the sake of calculation, 
what the denomination of the first of these three 
outside cards shall be, it may evidently be any one 
of four suits, and it may be combined with any one 
of the four suits, for the second.card, and so on for 
the third; therefore, there are 4 X 4 X 4 = 64 differ¬ 
ent ways in which we may get these three cards from 
any three of the twelve denominations available. 

These three denominations themselves can 
be selected from the twelve denominations in 

12 . II . ways. Therefore, the total num- 

1.2.3 

ber of hands containing a pair must be 78 X 64 
X 220= 1,098,240, and the fraction is:— 

N 1,098,240 _ 100 
D 2,598,960 236 

This gives us about 12 J to 10, or ij to i, against 
having a pair of any kind pat. 

NO PAIR 

In order to show that the foregoing calculations 
are correct, we must find the probability that the 
original or pat hand will not contain a pair. Dr. 
Pole did not attempt this, except by deduction; 
but Philpots and Hoffman give it as follows:— 
Five different cards may be selected from any 
five of the thirteen different denominations of four 
cards each in 4X4X4X4X4 = 1024 dif¬ 
ferent ways. These five denominations can be se¬ 
lected from the thirteen denominations available 

in ^3 • = 1287 different ways. 

I . 2 . 3 . 4 • 5 









2o6 


PRACTICAL POKER 


If we multiply these together, we get 1024 X 
1287 = 1,317,888 as the total number of ways in 
which five cards (without a pair among them) can 
be selected from a pack of fifty-two cards. But 
although there are no pairs among them, there will 
be all the flushes and straights already calculated 
for—that is, forty straight flushes, 5108 flushes 
which are not straight, and 10,200 straights which 
are not flushes = 15,348 to be deducted from 
1,317,888, leaving 1,302,540. 

Add together the results of all these various cal¬ 
culations, and we have the following table, showing 
the number of Poker hands in each of the nine 
classes. These figures are giv'en in the column on 
the left. On the right is given the odds against any 
individual player having a hand of that class dealt 
to him pat:— 

TABLE OF POKER HANDS 


Number. 

Class. 

Odds Against. 

40. . . 

... Straight flush. 

.64,973 to I 

624.. . 

... Four of a kind. 

. 4,164 “ I 

3.744--- 

... Full hand. 

. 693 “ I 

5,108--. 

. -. Flush. 


10,200. . . 

.. - Straight. 

. 254 “ I 

54,912... 

.. .Three of a kind. 


123.552--- 

.. .Two pairs. 


1,098,240. . . 

.. - One pair. 

. li “ I 

1,302,540..- 

.. .No pair. 


2,598,960 
























FOSTER ON POKER 


207 


DIVISIONS OF CLASSES 

For some purposes of calculation it is interesting 
to know how the various classes may be divided 
into hands of a certain individual rank, such as the 
number of two pairs, aces up, as compared to any 
other denomination. 

To begin with the two-pairs class. We must 
first find the total number of the lowest possible 
, hand in this class, and then each better hand will 
be simply a multiple of this number, as will be 
obvious when the problem is stated for working 
out. 

The lowest possible two-pair hand is treys and 
deuces. It has already been proved that two pairs 
may be combined in 6 X 6 = 36 different varieties 
between themselves, because there are six ways of 
getting the treys and six of getting the deuces. 
Leaving out the other treys and deuces in the pack, 
( which must not be used, as they would make the 
two pairs into a full hand, we have forty-four cards 
available to supply the odd card with the two pairs. 
Therefore there must be 36 X 44 = 1584 ways of 
getting a hand containing two pairs, treys up. This 
figure is, then, the basis of the whole table. 

If we calculate for fours up, there will be no 
variation in the 44 outside cards; but with the 
fours we can have either treys or deuces—two sets 
to choose from, while we had only one when we 
had trevs up—so there will be twice as many two 





2o8 


PRACTICAL POKER 


pairs, fours 

up, as there were treys up. 

The same 

is true of fives up, and the ratio of increase goes 

on steadily all the way to aces up. 

TABLE OF TWO PAIRS 

Number. Class. 

Odds Against. 

19,008. . . . 

. .Aces up. 

135 to I 

17,424. . . . 

.. Kings up. 

. 148 “ I 

15,840. . . . 

.. Queens up. 

. 163 “ I 

14,256. . . . 

,..Jacks up. 

. 181 “ I 

12,672. . . . 

. .Tens up. 

. 204 “ I 

11,088. . . . 

. .Nines up. 

• 233 “ I 

9,504. . . . 

.. Eights up. 

272 “ I 

7,920.... 

..Sevens uj). 

327 “ I 

6.^26. . . . 

.. Sixes up. . ... 

410 “ I 

4,752.... 

.. Fives up. 

- 536 “ I 

3,168.... 

. .Fours up. 

820 “ I 

1,584.... 

. .Treys up. '... 

. 1,640 “ I 


123,552 

TABLE OF NO PAIRS 


Number. 

Class. 

Odds Against. 

502,860... 

... Ace high. 


335,580... 

... King high. 

. 7 “ ^ 

213,180.. . 

... Queen high. 


127,500. . . 

.. .Jack high. 

. 19 “ I 

70,380... 


. 36 “ I 

34,680... 

.. .Nine high. 

. 74 “ I 

14,280. . . 

.. .Eight high. 

. 181 “ I 

4,080 „. . 




1,302,540 













































FOSTER ON POKER 


209 


j 

ODDS AGAINST IMPROVING 


The foregoing calculation^ are all for pat hands; 
the chances of improving. % the draw are calcu¬ 
lated in a different manner,^but the denominator is 
still always the total number^ of events possible, and 
the numerator is still the ^Iiumber of events that 
would be favourable to the desired result. The 
problems that present them^lves in calculating for 
the draw are of various kinds, each of which should 
be studied separately. 

If it is necessary to find the probability of two 
separate events happening at the same time (such 
as drawing two cards that shall be both hearts to fill 
out a three-card flush), the problem is called one of 
‘‘compound” or “concurrent” events. 

If it is necessary to find the probability of an 
event which is one of several, any of which can 
happen, but one of which precludes the others, the 
problem is called one of “conflicting” events — 
such as the chance of getting a full hand by draw¬ 
ing to two pairs. You cannot get the third card of 
both pairs, and whichever you do get will preclude 
your getting the other. 

If it is necessary to find the general average of 
probability for several events which are not equally 
probable, the chance for each event must first be 

p 






210 


PRACTICAL POKER 


found separately. Such a calculation would be 
the probable improvement in drawing to a pair, in 
w^hich four events are possible: to get another pair, 
to get three of a kind, to make a full hand, or to 
get four of a kind. 

Examples of these various calculations, and the 
methods adopted for arriving at the solution, will 
show how all such problems are solved. To begin 
with the simplest cases first. 


FILLING FLUSHES 

You want to know the probability of drawing a 
heart to fill out a four-card flush already in your 
hand. You discard one card, which you know is 
not a heart, and which you cannot take into your 
hand again; there are, therefore, 47 cards in the 
pack for you to draw from, and there is no reason 
w^hy you should draw one any more than another; 
so we must call the denominator of our fraction 
47. Among these 47 cards there are 9 hearts, 
therefore the numerator of our fraction is 9, and 
the chance of getting another heart to fill the flush 
is /y. 

To find the odds for or against the event, we 
deduct 9 from 47, which leaves 38—that is to 
say, there are nine favourable events and 38 un¬ 
favourable, and we express the odds against getting 
another heart as 38 to 9, or reduce it to about 
4 i to I. 



EOSTER ON POKER 


2II 


Suppose you held three hearts only, and deter¬ 
mined to draw two cards, what are your chances 
of filling a flush ? The first thing to do is to find 
the probability of getting one heart, and then to 
suppose that you succeed in getting it, and proceed 
to calculate your chance of getting the second. If 
you get the first, your chance of the second is very 
nearly the same as in drawing to a four-card flush 
in the first place. 

The chance of getting the first heart is lo in 47, 
because there are 10 hearts which you do not hold, 
and there are 47 cards to draw from. But this 
heart will do you no good unless you can go on 
and get the second one, the chance for which is 9 
in 46, as there are now only 46 cards left, but still 
9 hearts. 

To find the probability of two such events hap¬ 
pening concurrently, you must multiply together 
the two fractions of each separate chance, thus: 

— X — = which can be reduced to —, or 23 
47 46 2162 24 

to I against the compound event. 

To find the probability of drawing three hearts 
to two, another fraction must be added to express 
the probability of getting one of ii hearts out of 
47 cards. The three fractions: ii out of 47, 10 
out of 46, and 9 out of 45, being all multiphed 
together, will give 990 chances out of 97,290, re¬ 
ducible to I in 97, or 96 to i against getting three 
hearts to a two-card flush. 





212 


PRACTICAL POKER 


FILLING TWO PAIRS 

This problem is something hke the one of get¬ 
ting two hearts in the way of finding each of the 
chances separately; but it differs in the ending, be¬ 
cause both the chances calculated for cannot hap¬ 
pen. They are conflicting events. 

Suppose the two pairs you hold are sixes and 
deuces. There are two other sixes in the 47 un¬ 
known cards, so the fraction for the sixes is /y* 
There are also two deuces in the same 47 cards; 
but, instead of multiplying these fractions together 
as we did in the case of the flushes, we simply 
add them, remembering that the numerators only 
are added, the denominators remaining the same: 

224 

— X — = —. This is about i in 12, or ii to i 
47 47 47 

against filling. 

DRAWING TO THREES 

If you draw two cards to three of a kind, you 
have two chances of improvement—to get a fourth 
card, or to get a pair. The chance for the fourth 
card is easily seen to be 2 in 47, because, although 
there is only one card that will match your triplet, 
you have two chances to get it if you draw two 
cards. The odds against making four of a kind 
are, therefore, i in 23 J, or 22 J to i against it. 

The chance of getting a pair depends on draw¬ 
ing a second card of the same denomination as the 




FOSTER ON POKER 


213 


first drawn. If you draw to three tens, there will be 
46 cards in the pack which are not tens, and these 
46 cards will be made up of ten sets of 4 cards 
each, and 2 sets of 3 each, you having discarded 
the fourth card of these two sets. If you draw one 
of these four sets, your chance for drawing another 
of the same set or denomination must be 3 in 45, 
because there are 45 cards left, and 3 more of that 
set among them. If you draw one of the same 
cards that you have discarded, you have only 2 
chances in 45 to match it; but the odds are 40 to 
6 that the first card you draw is not the same as 
either of those you discarded. 

Taking all these things into account, it is about 
287 in 4500, or 14J to i against getting the pair. 
Adding the two chances together (for the four of a 
kind and for the pair), it is very nearly 5 in 47, or 
8i to I against any kind of improvement. 

Drawing only one card increases these odds one- 
half, as there is only one chance in 47 to get four 
of a kind, and not quite 3 in 46 to make a pair l)y 
matching your odd card. Taking these together, 
it is about 4 in 47, or ii to i against improving. 

DRAWING TO STRAIGHTS 

The chance of filling a straight is very nearly the 
.same as that for a four-card flush, provided the 
straight is open at both ends. Suppose it is four, 
five, six, seven, either a three or an eight will fill 
it; and, as there are 8 such cards in the 47 which 







214 


PRACTICAL POKER 


you do not hold, your chances of filling an open- 
end straight are 8 in 47, or about 5 to i against it. 

It is easier to hll a four-card flush than an open- 
end straight; but the first part of the flush is harder 
to get; so the two events combined—getting the 
flush and then filling it—make it still the better 
hand. It is also impossible to discriminate in 
Poker between hands which were dealt pat, and 
those which were made by drawing to them. On 
the show-down, the best Poker hand wins, whether 
it was pat or filled. 

The chance of filling an interior straight is just 
half that of the open-end, because only one card 
will do, and there are only four of them among the 
47 to be drawn from; so it is about ii to i against 
filling an interior straight. 

This straight being still harder to fill than a 
four-card flush, many persons think flushes unjust¬ 
ly ranked. But how is a player to prove he filled 
inside and not open-end? 

It is hardly worth while to give all the details of 
the calculations for the probability of holding four- 
card flushes or four-card straights in the first five 
cards dealt, but the results may be interesting. 

^ . 103,808 . , , ,. 

It IS --^or 24 to I against holding an 

2,598,960’ ^ ^ 

open-end straight pat. Multiply this chance by 

the chances against improving it, and you get 146 

to I as the odds against both having and filling 

an open-end straight. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


215 


pat are 


, or about 5J to i against it. 


The odds against an interior straight being dealt 
395^264 
2,589,960’ 

Multiply this by the chance against improving, and 
it is still easier to hold and improve than an open- 
end straight, the total chance against the double 
event being loi to i only. 

The odds against a four-card flush being dealt 


pat are 


111,540 


or about 22^ to i against it. 


2,598,960 

Multiply this by the chance of improvement, and 
the total is about 119 to i against the double 
event. 

As a player will get four times as many four-card 
interior straights dealt to him as he will four-card 
open-enders, the average on all kinds of straights, 
to hold four cards of them pat and to improve, is 
no to i; while the odds against the same concur¬ 
rent events in the case of the flush are 119 to i. 


DRAWING TO ONE PAIR 

In this calculation we must find a denominator 
which will give us all the possible variations in the 
draw, and then find how many of this number will 
give a certain result or kind of improvement. As 
there are 47 cards to draw from, this denominator 

will be ‘ = 16,215, the total number of 

1.2.3 

ways in which tliese three cards can be obtained. 









2i6 


PRACTICAL POKER 


TABLE OF IMPROVEMENT IN PAIRS 


Number. 

Condition. 

Odds Against. 

45--* 

... Improved to fours. 

. 359 to I 

165... 

... Improved to fulls. 

. 97 “ I 

1,854... 

... Improved to triplets. 

.. 8 “ I 

2,592... 

... Improved to two pairs- 

. 5 “ I 

11,559-•• 

... Did not improve. 



16,215 

If these four different chances of improvement 
are brought to fractions having a common denomi¬ 
nator, and then added together, it will be found 
that the odds against any kind of improvement are 
about 2J to I. 

The odds against getting the full of the four of a 
kind are so great that it will give a better working 
fraction to say that it is almost 2J to i that the 
hand will not improve to two pairs or three of a 
kind—that is, the player who hopes for or needs 
two pairs or threes, has i chance in 3^ to get one 
or the other. 


POPULAR FALLACIES 

Many persons have an idea that the number of 
players in the game must, in some way, alter the 
conditions upon which the probabilities of the 
game are usually calculated. The belief that 
having got four of a suit makes it more than 
usually improbable that you will draw one of the 
same suit, has been touched upon; yet the same 
people do not attach so much importance to having 













FOSTER ON POKER 


217 


got two of a denomination as affecting the chance 
of their getting a third. 

The only thing that is affected by the increase or 
decrease in the number of players is the relative 
value of any individual hand. With only two play¬ 
ing, it is even betting that the smallest possible 
pair, deuces, is the better hand before the draw, and 
it is 10 to I that aces are the better hand. But 
the moment a third or fourth player takes part in 
the game, the comparative value of these hands 
diminishes very rapidly. 

The exact value of any hand, as compared to 
other hands, is always its individual value when 
competing with only one other hand. For instance, 
you know that three deuces is a hand very much 
above the average; but if you held them in a pool 
in which three men had raised one another two or 
three times before the draw, you would not think 
much of such a small triplet. Apart from any 
such indications in the betting, and judging only by 
the number of players opposed to you in the pool, 
if you know that your hand is better than the 
average of any other individual player, you can 
multiply the fraction of these odds by itself, and 
find out the comparative value of your hand. 
This is something which can be done roughly in 
the head, and with a little practice most players 
become so familiar with the comparative value of 
a given hand, according to the number of play¬ 
ers in the game, that they do not need to stop 
and calculate it. 







2i8 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Suppose that it is 2 to i that yours is a better 
hand than your adversary’s, when two play. The 
fraction that expresses this value is If you are 
opposed to two players, the value of your hand be¬ 
comes f X f = 9, which is almost even. If three 
are opposed to you, it becomes, f x | x f 
which is more than 2 to i against you. It is in 
this manner that the various chances of improve¬ 
ment are calculated when one hand is drawing 
against several others. The different chances of 
those opposed must be added together to find their 
total expectation as against yours, because you have 
not to beat any one of those drawing, but all of 
them. If you draw to.tens up, and one of those 
against you draws to a bobtail flush, another to a 
pair of kings, another to an open-end straight, their 
total chances of improvement to hands that will 
beat your two pairs are 22 in 47, about. Your 
chances are about 4 in 47; so it is 22 to 4, or more 
than 5 to I, that they beat you after the draw. 
This is why good players do all their betting on 
two pairs before the draw, or at least try to prevent 
so many drawing against them. 

In spite of all beliefs to the contrary, the num¬ 
ber of players in the game, or the number of 
cards they have drawn, makes no difference in the 
chances of improving any given hand. 

Supposing there was no game at all, and you 
were just amusing yourself by dealing off five cards 
from -the top of the pack, and that you found upon 
one occasion that three of them were aces; what is 



FOSTER ON POKER 


219 


your chance of drawing another ace if you discard 
and take two cards? In this case you have the 
whole pack to draw from—that is, 47 cards—and 
as there is no other player holding cards, your 
ace must be in the pack. As there is only one 
ace, and you are taking two cards, you have 2 
chances in 47, as we have already proved in calcu¬ 
lating these odds. 

Now, there is no reason why this ace should be 
in any particular position in the pack, and it should 
make no difference to your chance of drawing it 
whether you took the two top cards or the two 
bottom cards, or one of each, or spread out the 
pack and draw two cards at random, or shuffled 
them all up and cut them, and then took two cards 
from the top or bottom, or anywhere. About 
twice in every forty-seven trials you would probably 
get an ace. It is just like taking a bag with a 
hundred black beans and ten white ones in it. It 
does not matter how much you shake the bag, or 
what part of it you put your hand into, it is 10 to i 
against your drawing a white bean. 

It is perfectly clear to most people that the 
chances of getting the fourth ace are 2 in 47 if you 
have the whole pack to draw from, because they 
know the ace is there. But many persons insist 
that if there are five players at the table, all hold¬ 
ing hands and drawing cards, the chances can no 
longer be 2 in 47, because there are, perhaps, only 
ten or a dozen cards left in the pack when your 
turn comes to draw. The extreme case that they 





220 


PRACTICAL POKER 


suggest is, that there may be only three cards left in 
the pack. How then, they ask, is it possible for 
the odds to be 2 in 47, or i in 23J against your 
getting the ace, when you have only three cards to 
draw from. 

It can be shown that the odds remain the same, 
regardless of the number of players in the game or 
the number of cards remaining in the pack when it 
comes to your turn to draw. 

If there are only three cards left, the other 
players must have held or drawn 44 of the 47 
which are not in your hand. What are the chances 
that they have drawn your ace ? 

In this case it does not matter how many cards 
each individual player drew in addition to his 
original five cards, because you are calculating the 
chance for the whole table as against yourself. 
The total of their probability of having drawn the 
ace is expressed by the fraction therefore the 
chance that they have not drawn it—that is, the 
odds against their drawing it—must be the differ¬ 
ence between 44 and 47, which is 3 in 47; while your 
chance of getting the ace is now 2 in 3, because 
there are only three cards left, and you are going to 
take two of them. 

As these are what are called conflicting events, 

it being impossible for you to get the ace and for 

them to get it, the two fractions of probability, 

yours and theirs, must be multiplied together thus: 

23 6 I , . , . . , . 

- X — = — = — r, which. IS just what it was 
3 47 141- 23i 



FOSTER ON POKER 


221 


when you had the whole pack to yourself to draw 
from. 

Any other chance for any other event may be 
calculated in the same way, and the result will 
always show the truth of the general principle, that 
your chance among the whole 47 cards is exactly 
the same whether you actually have the 47 cards to 
draw from, or whether a large part of that number 
is distributed among the hands of the other players. 
It is precisely the same thing as if you were to be 
helped from the top of the complete pack, and the 
cards to be held' by the others were to be given to 
them afterwards; or they got theirs first, and you 
were helped from the bottom of the pack. 





222 


PRACTICAL POKER 


LUCK AND SUPERSTITION 


Probably no work on Poker would be considered 
complete without a word on the subject of luck. 

Luck is simply another name for success, and 
the word itself is a derivative from the German 
verb “to succeed.” When a person is successful 
in any undertaking in which it is very likely that 
anyone else would have done as well, he is not 
spoken of as particularly lucky. The Poker player 
who improves a pair does not attract much atten¬ 
tion, although one who fills an inside straight may 
do so for the moment; but when a player draws 
to the five, six, nine of clubs, and makes a straight 
flush against four aces, he is talked about for a 
month. 

This shows that it is the improbability of the 
event which makes us regard the one to whom it 
happens as a lucky man. There is no particular 
luck in winning an ordinary pool, because someone 
must win it; but to win ten jack-pots in succession 
would be looked upon as phenomenal. To draw 
four cards to an ace and make an ace full, is re¬ 
garded as a remarkable stroke of luck; but that 
must happen to someone every now and then. It 
is only because it happens to one and not to another, 
that the one is spoken of as lucky. 

Some persons insist that good luck attaches 




FOSTER ON POKER 


223 


itself to individuals, just as cats attach themselves 
to houses, and that such people are lucky nearly all 
the time, just as the cat is nearly always at home. 
Others believe that man’s natural right is to be 
lucky, and that bad luck is a sort of temporary 
hoodoo, which can be shaken off by various charms, 
such as walking three times round the chair, chang¬ 
ing seats, staying out of th.e game for a few hands, 
or calling for new cards. Strange to say, the man 
who is in good luck makes no objection to any of 
these proceedings, although they are evidently direct¬ 
ed at him, and intended to divert his good fortune 
(or, at least, a part of it) into other channels. Why 
does not some authority on the subject of luck sug¬ 
gest some ceremony to be gone through by the lucky 
m.an, in order to prevent his good fortune from de¬ 
serting him ? 

All efforts to break into the run of luck enjoyed 
by some persons seem to be unavailing. It would 
be very strange if some men were not lucky all the 
time, and some equally unlucky; because, while 
there are so many people in the world, there must 
be great variations in their fortunes, just as there 
must be great differences in anything which is dealt 
with in large quantities. 

The probability of certain events, lucky or un¬ 
lucky, is exactly the same as any other probability; 
and the greater number of people you consider, the 
greater the variety of their luck. If a thousand 
people sat down to play ten games of Euchre in a 






224 


PRACTICAL POKER 


tournament, it would be very surprising if one of 
them did not lose all ten games, and equally sur¬ 
prising if another player did not win all ten. 

If you tossed a coin a great number of times, it 
would be most extraordinary if the record of heads 
and tails did not show great variations. Some¬ 
times it would come head and tail alternately, 
just as a man’s good and bad luck comes in streaks. 
Sometimes it comes heads for a long time, with 
only an occasional tail in between, just like some 
men’s general good luck, with only an occasional 
set-back. Sometimes it will come long streaks of 
heads, and then long streaks of tails, just like some 
men’s luck again. The greater the number of times 
you toss the coin, the greater the probability that 
there will be long runs of heads or tails to record. 
If you tossed a thousand times, it would not be 
remarkable if it came heads ten times successively 
at some time during the experiment; on the con¬ 
trary, it would be much more remarkable if it 
did not. 

Now, if there are half-a-million of people in one 
town, it can be mathematically demonstrated that 
there should be some one person in that town who 
will have uninterrupted good luck for nineteen 
years, and some other who will have steady bad luck 
for the same time. But in the same town there 
will be at least five hundred people who will have 
good luck for ten years at a stretch, and to balance 
them there must be about five hundred who will 
be unlucky for ten years at a time. Among the 




FOSTER ON POKER 


225 


millions of the earth there should be thousands 
upon thousands who would have uninterrupted 
good luck during their entire lives. 

At the start, the chances are against a long run 
of luck for any named individual; but after a 
Poker player’s luck, or any other man’s luck, has 
lasted for ten years, it is just as hkely to last for 
another year as it is to change. Because a man 
has been lucky for ten years, is no reason why he 
should be lucky next year; and because a man has 
been unlucky all his hfe so far, is no argument 
against his being extremely lucky for the future. 
You can never tell when it will change. To be 
lucky means to have succeeded in the past. Every 
time you sit down to play Poker is like a new toss 
of the coin, and no living man can make it come 
his way every time. 

Luck, or what we call luck, is certainly a very 
strange thing, the bacteria of which would be well 
worth cultivating if it could be found. That every¬ 
thing depends on skill, many persons besides Poker 
players will tell you is a mistake. Any self-made 
man will tell you that there have been many things 
that he has struggled hard for, but could never 
reach, with all his supposed abilities and shrewd¬ 
ness; and that other things, which he did not 
think much about, have turned out to be the things 
that carried him along. The tide in the affairs of 
life is an accident, whether you take it flood or 
ebb, in business or in playing cards. No man, 
finding himself afloat on a strange river for the 
Q 





226 


PRACTICAL POKER 


first time, can have any idea of where he will drift 
to if he abandons himself to the current. Shake¬ 
speare says, to take it at the flood; but he does not 
say which way to go. It may lead to fortune, or it 
may founder you. Two men of equal ability will 
take the same stream on the same tide on different 
days, and the one will get through and the other 
will not, just as two Poker players will get the same 
hand on different days, and it will make the one 
and break the other. The bottom sometimes falls 
out of the most carefully laid schemes, and the 
reasons for some failures were impossible to foresee. 
If it had not rained the night before, Napoleon might 
have won at Waterloo. The very care and anxiety 
of some men to provide for every possible contin¬ 
gency, seems to defeat the end they have in view. 

It is so in Poker. The most careful players, and 
those who have the best intellectual endowments 
for the game, are not always the most successful. 
You cannot play Poker by machinery; and, in 
spite of all scientific theories to the contrary, there 
is such a thing as luck, especially in cards. That 
it will equalise itself in time, may be true; but, as 
in the case of tossing the coin, the length of time is 
uncertain, and life may be over before the tide 
turns. The technical knowledge of the good player 
must reduce his losses when he is in bad luck, and 
it should help him to increase his winnings when 
things are going his way; but it will never guarantee 
that he will win all the time, and any player who 
never loses should be watched. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


227 


Common-sense usually solves the question of 
luck at the Poker table, because players who are 
continually unlucky soon quit the game,'finding in 
it nothing but vexation, instead of amusement. 
Those who are lucky naturally stick to it. The 
combination of good luck and good play is invin¬ 
cible, and it will take a large mixture of bad play 
to overcome good luck. Bad play and good luck 
will beat good play and bad luck all the time. 

These pages are intended to supply the principles 
of good play. I regret that I cannot do anything 
but wish for the reader’s good luck; but I might 
conclude with the words of the old song:— 

Playing Poker is a science but a few understand, 

Some men play in defiance of the worth of their hand; 
And they win too, or they seem to, but you’ll find in the end, 
They will not be the players with money to lend. 

Though the bluffer may not suffer on the spot for his bluff, 
His doom will be rougher when he’s bluffed just enough. 
Shun a bobtail, if you’d play well, or, my poor noodle, 
You’ll lose your boodle; it’s a question of time. 












PRACTICAL POKER 


228 


TECHNICAL TERMS 


Age .—The player next the dealer on his left. The one 
who puts up the blind. The eldest hand. 

Alternate Straight. —Two, four, six, eight, ten; sometimes 
called a skip. When played, it beats two pairs and 
a blaze. 

Ante .—The bet before the draw. The amount that a 
player must pay to come into a pool after he has seen 
his cards. Double the amount of the blind. 


Banker .—The one who sells chips to the players, and re¬ 
deems them afterwards. 

Big Dog .—A hand which is ace high and nine low, one 
card of the sequence missing—such as ace, king, 
queen, ten, nine. When played, it beats a straight 
or a Little Dog, and loses to a flush. 

Blaze .—Five court cards. Although only two j)airs, it 
beats any other two pairs, except a higher blaze, 
when played. 

Blind .—The amount put up by the age before the cards 
.are dealt. This is a compulsory bet, not to be con¬ 
founded with the ante, which is voluntary excej)! in 
jack-pots. 

Bluffing .—Betting as if you had a better hand than you 
actually hold. Any attempt to drive out better hands 
than your own. 

Bobtail .—Four cards of a straight or flush, the fifth card 
not fitting in. 

Bone .—The white chips used in play. Those of smallest 
value. 






FOSTER ON POKER 


229 


'Buck. —A marker to show when it will be a jack-pot. In 
straight Poker, to mark the player’s turn to ante for 
the whole table. 

Burnt Card. —A card turned face up on the bottom of 
the pack, to prevent seeing the bottom card or deal¬ 
ing it off. 


Calling. —Betting an equal amount instead of raising, so 
that the hands must be shown without further betting. 

Checks. —The white check is the unit, the red is worth 
five whites, and the blue is worth five reds; but special 
values are usually attached to them. 

Chip Along. —Putting up one white chip only, in order 
to see what the following players will do. 

Chips. —The counters or checks used instead of money. 

Cold Deck. —A pack which is surreptitiously substituted 
for the one in play, and which is usually pre-arranged 
for the next deal. 

Cold Feet. —Any excuse for leaving the game before the 
time agreed on. 

Coming In. —Declaring to play for a pot or at least to 
draw cards. 

Complete Hand. —A hand which has been discarded from 
and drawn to. 

Counters. —Checks or chips. 

Court Cards. —Kings, queens, and jacks. Aces are not 
court cards. 


Dead Man's Hand. —Jacks and eights. 

Deadwood. —The cards that have been thrown out by the 
various players before drawing to complete their hands. 
The discard pile. 

Deck. —A common name for the pack. 

Devil’s Bed-Posts. —The four of clubs. 






230 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Discard. —The cards which are thrown out of the original 
hand in order to fill the complete hand. 

Draw. —The cards which are taken in after the discard. 

Duffer.—A person who is not well versed in the principles 
of the game. 

Dutch Straight. —A skip, such as four, six, eight, ten, 
queen. When played, it beats two pairs and a blaze. 


Edge. —A corruption of the word “age.” 

Exposed Cards. —Cards which are turned up in the act of 
dealing, but were not faced in the pack. 


Faced Cards. —Cards which are found face up in the pack. 

Fatten. —Adding chips to a jack-pot which no one opened 
on the previous deal. 

Filling. —Drawing cards which improve the original hand. 

Flush. —All five cards of the same suit. 

Foul Hand. —Any hand containing more or less than five 
cards. 

Four Flush. —Any four cards of one suit to draw to. If 
drawn to and not filled, it is a bobtail. 

Fours. —Any four cards of the same denomination, as 
four kings. 

Free Ride. —Putting up for all the other players in a jack¬ 
pot. The penalty for drawing to false openers. 

Freeze Out. —A form of the game in which each player 
retires as soon as he has lost his original stake. 

Frozen Out. —When a player has lost what he started 
with in a game of freeze out. 

Fidl Hand. —Three of a kind and a pair. Flushes and 
straights are never spoken of as full hands. 

Fuzzing. —Milking the cards instead of shuffling them. 








FOSTER ON POKER 


231 


Gallery. —Spectators who are simply watching the play. 

Going In. —Deciding to play a hand, or at least to draw 
cards to it. Putting up the amount of the ante. 

Greek. —A card-sharper. (Grec.) 

Hand. —The five cards given to each player by the dealer 
is the original hand. After the discard and draw, it 
is the complete hand. If it is played without draw¬ 
ing, it is a pat hand. 

Hustler. —One who inveigles people into games which are 
not strictly honest. 

Imperfect Pack. —A pack in which there are duplicates, 
or cards short, or cards so torn or marked that they 
can be told by their backs. 

Inside Straights. —Sequences which require an interme¬ 
diate card to fill them—such as two, four, six, seven; 
or eight, nine, ten, queen. 

Intricate Shuffle. —Butting the two parts of the pack to¬ 
gether at the ends, and riffling them into each other. 

Jack-Pots. —Pots to which all players contribute an equal 
amount before the cards are dealt, and which can¬ 
not be opened for betting except by a player who 
holds a pair of jacks or better. 

Jonah. —A player who is in very bad luck. 

Kicker. —A card held up with a pair, such as an ace held 
with a pair of fours, drawing two cards only. 

Kilter. —No pair and no card above a nine, with no chance 
for either straight or flush. Usually played pat by 
Southerners. 

Kitty. —Taking one white chip from the pool every time 
a certain hand is shown, such as threes or better. 
The kitty either goes to pay the expenses of the room, 
or to make up a refreshment fund. 







232 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Limit. —The amount by which any previous bet may be 
increased. More properly called the “raise limit.” 

Little Dog. —Deuce low and seven high, one card of the 
sequence missing—such as two, three, four, six, seven. 
When played, it beats a straight, but is out-ranked by 
a flush or a Big Dog. 

Make Good. —Adding enough to the blind or straddle to 
make it equal the ante. 

Make Up. —Shuffling the cards for the next dealer when 
two packs are used. The second man to the left of 
the dealer does this. 

Making the Pass. —Shifting the cards back again as they 
were before they were cut. 

Marker. —Some object which shows that the player behind 
it owes that amount of money in the pool, and is still 
playing his hand. Chips borrowed from the pool, and 
placed on a match box. 

Milking. —Shuffling by taking a card from the top and 
bottom of the pack simultaneously, and dropping them 
on the table two by two. Sometimes called “snow¬ 
ing the cards.” 

Misdeal. —Any irregularity in the distribution of the cards 
which requires a new deal by the same dealer. 

Mistigris. —The joker added to the pack. The player 
holding it can call it anything he pleases. Four clubs 
and the joker is a club flush. 

Monkey Flush. —Three cards of a suit, to which two cards 
are drawn. 

Mouth Bets. —Bets made by word of mouth, without put¬ 
ting up any money. 

Natural Jacks. —Jack-pots which are made by the natural 
process of no player putting up an ante to draw cards. 

Nicknames for Cards. —Diamond nine, “the curse of Scot¬ 
land.” Club four, “the devil’s bed-posts.” Club ace, 
“the puppy foot.” The four queens are “typewriters.” 








FOSTER ON FOKER 


233 


Odds. —The difference between the numerator and the de¬ 
nominator of the fraction which expresses the prob¬ 
ability or improbability of any event. For instance: 
the chances of getting a fifth heart to fill a flush are 
nine in forty-seven; the odds against it are therefore 
thirty-eight to nine. 

One-end Straight. —A sequence which only one card will 
complete—such as ace, king, queen, jack; or ace, two,, 
three, four. 

Open-end Straight. —A sequence which can be filled at 
either end—such as four, five, six, seven. Either three 
or eight will fill it. 

Openers. —Any hand which entitles the holder to open a 
jack-pot. 

Original Hand. —The first five cards given to the player 
by the dealer. After the draw, it becomes the Com¬ 
plete Hand. 

Pass. —Refusing to come into a pool, or refusing to call 
a bet. 

Pat Hand. —One w'hich cannot be improved by drawing 
to it. 

Pelter. —Or Chicago Pelter. The same as a Kilter. 

Philosopher. —A polite name for a card-sharper. 

Pile. —All the chips in front of the player. All the money 
' he is willing or able to risk on the game. 

Pone. —The player on the dealer’s right. The one who 
cuts the cards. 

Pool. —The assemblage of all the antes and bets made by 
all the players. 

Pot. —The compulsory contributions of the players to form 
a jack. 

Probabilities. —The odds in favour of any event. The 
chance may be for or against; the probability is al¬ 
ways for it. 

Puppy Foot. —The ace of clubs. 







234 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Raise .-—The amount by which any previous bet may be in¬ 
creased. The term “limit” is often mis-used for “raise.” 

Rake-off .—The percentage which the house takes out of 
the game by means of the kitty. 

Ring In .—Substituting an unfair pack for the one in use. 

Rooking .—Inducing ignorant or weak players to join in a 
game for the purpose of fleecing them. 

Round of Jacks .—Nothing but jack-pots until each player 
at the table has had a deal. A whangdoodle. 

Round-the-Corner .—A straight which connects the top and 
the bottom of a suit—such as three, two, ace, king, 
queen. When played, it ranks as the lowest possible 
straight, but beats three of a kind. 

Royal Flush .—The highest possible hand; the ace, king, 
queen, jack, ten, of any suit. 

Run .—The same as a sequence or straight. 


See .—To call a bet without raising it. 

Sequence .—Any natural order of the cards, not necessarily 
of the same suit—such as three, four, five, six, seven. 

Short-card Player .—One who plays Poker; usually also a 
sharper. 

Show-down .—Laying the hands face up on the table when 
a call is made. 

Show-down Poker .—A game in which the limit is so small 
as compared to the ante, that bluffing is impossible. 

Shuffling .—Any method of mixing the cards so that their 
previous arrangement is completely disturbed. 

Shy .—A player who has not put up his ante for a jack¬ 
pot is shy. 

Sight .—If one player bets more than his opponent has, 
the one that is unable to call the whole amount may 
demand a show for the amount that he has on the 
table. 






FOSTER ON POKER 


235 


Skin Game. —One in which two or more sharpers combine 
to fleece the unwary. 

Skip. —The same as a Dutch Straight: two, four, six, eight, 
ten. When played, it beats two pairs and a blaze. 

Snowing Cards. —The same as milking. 

Splitting. —Having opened a jack-pot with a single pair, 
discarding one of the pair in order to draw for a 
better hand, such as a flush. 

Square Game. —One in which the cards have not been 
trimmed wedge-shape. Usually applied to games in 
which there is no unfairness of any kind. 

Squeezers. —Cards with a small indicator mark on the 
upper left-hand corner of the faces. Almost all 
modern cards are squeezers. 

Stack. —Twenty chips or counters is a stack of chips. 

Stacking Cards. —Arranging the pack during the shuffle. 
Locating certain cards before dealing. , 

Stakes. —The amount of money each player puts on the 
table at the beginning of the game. 

Standing Pat. —Refusing to draw any cards. Playing the 
original hand. 

Stay. —Coming into a jack-pot which has already been 
opened by another player. Calling the raise of a 
player who attempts to raise you out before the draw. 

Still Pack. —The one not in play when two are used. 

Stock. —The cards that remain in the pack after dealing 
the original hands. The part from which the draws 
will be dealt. 

Stool-Pigeon. —An outsider who overlooks the hand of a 
player, and indicates its contents to a confederate in 
the game. 

Straddle. —Double the amount of the blind, put up by the 
player to the left of the age, before seeing any of his 
cards. 



236 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Straight. —A sequence or run, such as five, six, seven, 
eight, nine. 

Straight Flush. —-Any sequence of cards in the same suit, 
such as the five, six, seven, eight, nine of hearts. See 
Royal Flush. 

Strippers. —A pack so trimmed that the dealer or the pone 
can withdraw certain cards at will. 

Sucker. —A gambler’s victim. 

Sweeten —The same as ' fatten. Adding to a jack-pot 
which no one opened on the previous deal. 

System. —Any theory of play which regulates a player’s 
game. 

Table Stakes. —A variety of the game in which a player 
cannot bet any more than he has on the table at the 
time. 

Talon. —The remainder of the pack after dealing the 
original hands. 

Threes. —Triplets, or three of a kind. 

Tie. —Two hands of equal value, which divide the pool. 

Tiger. —The lowest possible combination of the cards, 
seven high and deuce low, one card of the sequence 
missing, such as two, three, four, six, seven. The 
same as a Little Dog. When played, it loses to a 
flush, but beats a straight. 

Triplets. —Three of a kind. 


Under the Gun. —The first man to bet; the player im¬ 
mediately to the left of the age. 

Unlimited Poker. —The game in which a player may bet as 
much as he pleases, and any other player has twenty- 
four hours in which to find the money to call. 

Up .—The denomination of the higher pair of two in calling 
a hand. Queens “up” would mean two pairs, the 
queens being the better. 







FOSTER ON POKER 


237 


Wedges.—\ pack so trimmed that certain cards are strip¬ 
pers, and can be pulled out at will. 

Welcher .—One who makes mouth bets, and afterwards 
refuses to pay. 

Whangdoodle .—A round of jack-pots, played as a com¬ 
pulsion after such a hand as four of a kind has been 
shown to win a pot. 

Widow .—An extra hand dealt to the 'table, especially in 
Whisky Poker. 



238 


PRACTICAL POKER 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Abbott, J. —“Treatise on Jack-Pot Poker.” Published 
by J. E. Eyrich, New Orleans, U.S.A., 1881. 

Allen, G. W.—“Poker Rules in Rhyme.” New York, 
U.S.A., 1895. 

Blackbridge, John. —“The Complete Poker Player; con¬ 
taining Quotations from Decisions in Wilkes’ Spirit 
of the Times, from 1870.” Published by the Advance 
Publishing Company, New York, U.S.A., 1875. 

Blackbridge, John. —Published by Dick & Fitzgerald, 
New York, 1880. 

Blackbridge, John. —Published by Dick & Fitzgerald, 
New York, 1884. 

[Note. —Neither of the editions published by Dick 
& Fitzgerald contains the “decisions,” nor the ex¬ 
ample hands and the elaborate calculations, that ap¬ 
pear in the first edition.] 

Brown, Garrett. —“ How to Beat the Game.” Published 
by G. W. Dillingham, New York, 1903. [This is 
chiefly stories.] 

Curtis, David A.—“The Science of Draw Poker.” Pub¬ 
lished by the Author, New York, 1901. [This is an 
elaboration of various articles that appeared from time 
to time in the New York Sunday Sun.] 

Curtis, David A.—“Queer Luck.” Published by Bren- 
tanos, New York, 1900. [This is a collection of Poker 
stories, reprinted from the New York Sunday Sun.] 

Debebian, Dennis.— “The Game of Draw Poker.” Pub¬ 
lished by White & Allen, New York, 1887. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


239 


Dick, W. B. —“Progressive Poker.” Published by Dick 
& Fitzgerald, New York, 1887. 

Dick, W. B.—“Draw Poker; including Schenck’s Rules.” 

Published by Dick & Fitzgerald, New York, 1887. 
“Draw Poker and Spoil-Five.” Anon. Published by 
Routledge & Sons, London, 1884. 

“Decisions on Moot Points of Draw Poker.” Published 
by the New York Consolidated Card Company, New 
York, 1897. 

“Draw Poker without a Master.” Richard Guerndale. 

Published by G. W. Dillingham, New York, 1889. 
Edwards, Eugene. —“Jack-Pots.” Published by Higgins 
& Co., Chicago, U.S.A., 1900. [Mostly Poker 

stories. ] 

Florence, W. J.—“Gentlemen’s Handbook of Poker.” 

Published by Routledge & Sons, London, 1892. 
Florence, W. J.—“The Handbook of Poker.” A cheap 
reprint of the above, published in 1896. 

Foster, R. F. —“Poker.” One of the Pocket Library 
Series. Published by Brentanos, New York, 1897. 
George. —“Talks of Uncle George to his Nephew about 
Draw Poker.” Published by Dick & Fitzgerald, 
New York, 1883. 

Gray, E. A.—“Hints on Poker.” Published by E. A. 

Gray & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A., 1886. 
Guerndale, R. —“Draw Poker without a Master.” Pub¬ 
lished in London at The Bazaar Office, 1888. 
Kellar, j. W.—“The Game of Draw Poker, including 
Schenck’s Rules and Treatise.” Published by White, 
Stokes & Allen, New York, 1887. 

Lillard, j. F. B.—“Poker Stories, from 1845 to 1895.” 

Published by Harper & Brothers, New York, 1896. 
Major, The. —“The Poker Primer.” Published by the 
' Excelsior Publishing House, New York, 1886. 





240 


PRACTICAL POKER 


Matthews, J. B.—“Pen and Ink.” Has the essay, “Poker 
Talk,” p. 187. Published by Longmans, Green & Co., 
New York, 1888. 

Meehan, C. H. W.—“Laws and Practice of the Game of 
Euchre; to which is added. The Rules for Playing 
Draw Poker.” Published by T. B. Peterson, Phila¬ 
delphia, U.S.A., 1877. 

Pardon, C. F. [Rawdon Crawley].—“Poker.” Published 
by Chas. Goodall & Sons, London, 1889. 

Patten, Lieut. F. J. —“How to Win at Draw Poker.” 
Published by Dick & Fitzgerald, New York, 1896. 

Percy, Alfred. —“Poker: Its Laws and Practice.” Pub¬ 
lished by the Pioneer Press, Allahabad, India, 1879. 

Philpots, E. P.—“A Treatise on Poker.” Published by 
Simpkin, Marshall & Co., London, 1904. 

Poker.—“The Rules of Poker.” Published by Harrison, 
London, 1882. 

Poker: “How to Play It.” Published by Griffith & Far- 
ren, London, 1882. 

Poker.—“Science in Poker.” By the Author of “The 
Thompson Street Poker Club.” Published by G. W. 
Dillingham, New York, 1887. 

Poker.—“The Laws of Poker.” Printed for Private Circu¬ 
lation only, by the Cleveland Club, Sackville Street, 
London, 1901. 

Poker.—“The Thompson Street Poker Club.” Published 
by Routledge & Sons, London, 1884. 

Poker.—“Poker Chips.” A Monthly Magazine devoted 
to the game. Only one number issued; afterwards 
changed to “The White Elephant.” Published by 
F. Tousey, New York, 1896. 

Proctor, R. A.—“Poker Principles and Chance Laws.” 
Published by Dick & Fitzgerald, New York, 1883. 

Proctor, R. A.—“Chance and Luck, with Notes on 
Poker.” Published by Longmans, Green & Co., Lon¬ 
don, 1887. 




FOSTER ON POKER 


241 


Rawdon Crawley .—See “Pardon.” 

Reynolds, Alleyne. —“Poker Probabilities, calculated 
for the Full Pack and for the Piquet Pack.” Published 
by Paulson & Bradford, ShefiSeld, England, 1901. 

ScHENCK, General R. C.—“Rules for Playing Poker.” 
Privately printed in London, 1872. 

Templar. —“The Poker Manual, with the International 
Code.” Published by Mudie & Sons, London, 1895. 
Trumble, Alfred. —“The Mott Street Poker Club.” 

Published by White & Allen, New York, 1888. 
Welsh, Charles. —“Poker: How to Play It.” Published 
by Griffith & Farren, LondoUp 1882. 

Winterblossom, H. T. —“The Game of Draw Poker 
Mathematically Illustrated.” Published by W. H. 
Murphy, New York, 1875. 


FRENCH BOOKS ON POKER 


Foster, J. H. —“Traite Mathematique du Jeu de Poker.” 
Paris, 1889. 

Habeythe. —“Jeu de Poker.” Paris, 1886. 

Laun. —“Jeu de Poker.” Published by Watilliaux, Paris, 
1897. 

Nabot, U.—“Jeu de Poker.” Published by Henri Gautier, 
Paris, 1893. [This work is full of intricate calculations 
of the probabilities, with tables.] 

Yirt, L. H.—“Traite Complet du Jeu de Poker.” Paris 
1903. Published by Paul Dupont. [There is no 
actual treatise in this work, as it is entirely devoted 
to the Laws.] 

R 





242 


PRACTICAL POKER 


CHRONOLOGY 

The chronological order in which the foregoing 
works have appeared is as follows. When the 
author is anonymous, the publisher’s name is 
given in italics:— 


1872. R. C. Schenck, Eng. 

1875. John Blackbridge, U.S.A. 
1875. H. T. Winterblossom, U.S.A. 
1877. C. H. W. Meehan, U.S.A. 
1879. Alfred Percy, India. 

1881. J. Abbott, U.S.A. 

1882. Charles Welsh, U.S.A. 

1882. Harrison^ Eng. 

1882. Griffith & Farren, Eng. 

1883. R. A. Proctor, U.S.A. 

1883. “George,” U.S.A. 

1884. Routledge, Eng. 

1886. E. A. Gray, U.S.A. 

1886. The Major, U.S.A. 

1886. Habeythe, Paris. 

1887. J. W. Kellar, U.S.A. 

1887. Dillingham, U.S.A. 

1887. Debebian, U.S.A. 

1887. W. B. Dick, U.S.A. 

1888. J. B. Matthews, U.S.A. 

1888. R. Guerndale, Eng. 


1888. A. Trumble, U.S.A. 

1889. C. F. Pardon, Eng. 

1889. J. H. Foster, Paris. 

1892. W. J. Florence, Eng. 

1893. U- Nabot, Paris. 

1895. G. W. Allen, U.SJV. 

1895. “Templar,” Eng. 

1896. J. F. B. Lillard, U.S.A. 

1896. F. J. Patten, U.S.A. 

1896. Toiisey, U.S.A. 

1897. R. F. Foster, U.S.A. 

1897. N.Y.C. Card Co., U.S.A. 

1897. Laun, Paris. 

1900. E. Edwards, U.S.A. 

1901. David A. Curtis, U.S.A. 
1901. Cleveland Club, Eng. 

1901. A. Reynolds, Eng. 

1903. G. Brown, U.S.A. 

1903. L. H. Virt, Paris. 

1904. E. P. Philpots, Eng. 

1905. R. F. Foster, Eng. 




GENERAL INDEX 





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GENERAL INDEX 


PAGE 

Abandoning hands too soon.40, 50 


Academie de Jeu. 6 

Aces, raising on. 176 

Advantage of the age. 173 

Advantage of the dealer. 176 

Advantage of drawing against 

openers. 122 

Advantage of knowing odds, 102 
Advantage of percentage.... 146 

.Age. 65 

.Age, all play against. 176 

Age always thought to be 

bluffing. 174 

Age can play weak hands... 108 

Age drawing to bobtails. 175 

.Age frequently called. 175 

•Age going in on nothing. 173 

Age, how to play it. 171 

.Age never passes. 53 

.Age pretending to bluff. 187 

Age raising the ante. 173 

Age should not draw two cards 174 

Age the best position. 171 

Age wasting chips. 172 

All in the draw. 99 

All jack-pots'.. 84 

Ambigu. 2 

Amount for oyiening jacks... 89 

2 


PAGE 

Anners, H. F. 10 

Anomalies in rank of hand.. 76 

.Ante.24, 66 

Ante and blind. 67 

Ante and limit, proportion... 64 

Antes in jack-pots. 31 


Asking how many cards drawn 39 

As Nas. 5 

Average expectation of im¬ 


provement . 134 

Average hands. 101 

Average value of hands. 217 

Axioms alx)ut jack-pots. 114 

Bad ante raise. 127 

Bad habits.167, 180 

Banker. 62 

Bare openers. no 

“Before the war” Poker._181 

Best hand before the draw, 

best after. 117 

Bets against the table. 143 

Betting bluffs. 190 

Betting limits. 63 

Betting on the hands... .28, 33, 69 
Betting two pairs before the 
draw. 125 















































246 


GENERAL INDEX 


PAGE 


Betting under the gun. 178 

Betting without looking. 166 

Bibhography. 238 

Big and httle dogs. 76 

Blackbridge .193, 195 

Blaze. 74 

Bhnd. 64 

Blind and ante. 67 

Blind and straddle. 23 

Blind, protecting. 174 

Bobtails, odds against filling 214 

Bohn’s Handbook. 10 

Bonus in jack-pots. no 

Bluff. 93 

Bluffer raised should raise— 187 
Bluffer supposed to have 

nothing. 186 

Bluffing. 181 

Bluffing and then showing— 182 

Bluffing after raising ante_126 

Bluffing gives option for 

nothing. 187 

Bluffing impossible in jacks 182 

Bluffing in the betting. 190 

Bluffing in the draw. 190 

Bluffing in table stakes. 183 

Bluffing, judgment necessary 

in. 186 

Bluffing killed by small limits 182 

Bluffing on weakness. 184 

Bluffing on modetate strength 184 
Bluffing on your reputation.. 190 

Bluffing, principles of. 183 

Bluffing the bluffer. 188 

Bluffs which are dangerous. 185 

Bluffs which are false. 189 

“Boosting” it. 126 

Bouillotte. 2 

Brag. 2 


PAGE 


Brelan. 2 

Broken hands. 185 

Bucks in jack-pots. 83 

Bucks in straight poker. 94 

Bucks in table stakes. 91 

Calculating average values.. 218 
Calculating draw to bobtails 214 
Calculating draw to flushes.. 210 


Calculating draw to pairs.. 215 
Calculating draw to straights 213 
Calculating draw to triplets. 212 
Calculating draw to two pairs 212 


Calculating pat flushes. 200 

Calculating pat fours. 199 

Calculating pat fulls. 200 

Calculating pat no-pair hands 205 
Calculating pat pair hands.. 204 
Calculating pat straights .... 201 
Calculating pat straight 

flushes. 199 

Calculating pat threes. 202 

Calculating pat two pairs... 203 
Calculating pxDssible improve¬ 
ment . 209 

Calculating various two pairs 207 
Calculating confirming expe¬ 
rience . 195 

Calculations for Poker hands 195 

Calling. 68 

Calling and raising. 156 

Calling and showing. 29 

Calling a sight. 92 

Calling because you have bet 179 
Cards drawn, asking how many 39 
Cards exposed in the draw . . 37 

Cards mixed with discards.. 55 

“Cavendish” on Poker.. 10, 202 

















































GENERAL INDEX 


247 


PAGE 


Chance and probability. 196 

Chances of the draw. 192 

Changing places at the table. 57 
Characteristics of close players 164 
Characteristics of liberal 

players. 164 

Charms for changing luck_223 

Chipping along, weak game 177 
Chronology of Poker books.. 242 

Classes of hands. 72 

Close and liberal games.. 100, 163 

Coins, tossing. 224 

Coming in. 98 

Coming in on any pair. 115 

Coming in on bare openers.. no 
Coming into jacks. 115 


Comparative value of hands. 71 
Comparative value of position 104 
Comparing chances with odds 149 
Compound or concurrent 


events. 209 

Concealed percentages. 148 

Conflicting events.209 

Consistency in play. 116 

Continuation of luck. 225 

Cotton’s “Complete Game¬ 
ster”. 2 

Counters. 61 

Cowterthwait’s “Hoyle”.. 9 

Criticisms on jack-pots. 113 

Curiosity.179, 183 

Cutting, refusing to cut. 65 

Dangerous bluffs. 185 

Dealing. 20 

Dealing off jacks. 85 

Dealing the first hand. 63 

Deciding between equal hands 77 


PAGE 

Declining to cut. 65 

Definition of luck. 22*2 

Dela Rue’s “Round Games” 10 
Description of the game.... 6 r 

Deuces as good as tens against 

openers. 123 

Dice percentages. 147 

Dick & Fitzgerald’s 

“Hoyle”. II, 13 

Difference between blind and 

ante. 67 

Difficulty of preserving dis¬ 
cards. 4 i> 43 

Difficulty of successful bluffing 181 
Disadvantages of the age... 171 
Disadvantages of first bet... 178 
Disadvantages of playing lib¬ 
eral game. 163 

Disadvantages of straddling. 105 
Discarding and drawing.... 33 

Discarding out of turn. 167 

Discarding smaller of two 

pairs. 130 

Discards, difficulty of pre¬ 
serving . 41 

Disputed rules. 35 

Disputes, how settled. 34 

Dividing hands into classes.. 207 

Dr. Pole’s calculations, 

202, 204, 205 

Draw mi.xed with discards.. 52 

Draw, paying too much for it 151 
Draw Poker first mentioned.. ii 

Draw Poker introduced. 12 

Draw valuable to weak hands 138 
Drawing against openers.... 117 

Drawing cards.25, 69 

Drawing cards, calculating 

odds. 209 

Drawing five cards. 141 













































24S 


GENERAL INDEX 


PAGE 


Drawing to ace, king. 1^2 

Drawing to an ace. 132 

Drawing to a pair. 130 

Drawing to bobtails. 116 

Drawing to false openers.. .47, 88 

Drawing to flushes.131; 151 

Drawing to improve. 130 

Drawing to nothing. 141 

Drawing to one card. 141 

Drawing to straights. 131 

Drawing to straight flushes.. 132 

Drawing to three-card 

straights. 132 

Drawing to three-card 

straight flush. 133 

Drawing to three of a kind.. 131 

Drawing to tw'o pairs. 130 

Draw's which are bluffs. 190 

Draws should be watched... 153 

Driving out weak hands. 124 

Dutch straights. 74 

Earliest mention of full-deck 

Poker. 9 

Earliest mention in America..8, 11 
Earliest mention in England . 10 

Earliest mention of jack-pots. 13 
Earliest mention of straights . 13 

hiarliest mention of straight 

flushes. 13 

Earliest mention of the draw. 11 

Early opposition to jack-pots 14 

Edge. 65 

Errors in calculations, Black- 

bridge . 195 

Errors in calculations. Dr. 

Pole.202, 204, 205 

Experiment, drawing against 
openers. 118 


PAGE 

Expressing opinions of the 


play. 170 

Extra hands. 74 

False bluffs. 189 

False inferences. 180 

False openers.32, 46, 87 

Fascination of unknown, 

chances. 145 

Fattening jacks.34. ^^5 

Field on Poker.10, 203: 

First bet, disadvantage of.... 178' 

First bettor. 66’ 

First bettor being in. 106 

First dealer. 63; 

Florence, W. J. 171 

Flu.shes, calculating for. 200 

Forced jack-pots. 83: 

Formation of table. 19: 

Foul hands. 57 

Foul hand better than none.. 50 

Four-card hands foul. 57 

Four of a kind, calcu’ating.. 199 

Free rides. 88 

Freeze out. 90 

French books on Poker. 241 

Frere’s “Hoyle”. iz 

Full hands, calculating. 200 

Gambling exposed. 9 

Gilet_,. 2 

Good enough to call, good 

enough to raise. 157 

Green, J. H. 8 

Green’s description of Poker 9 

Half-breed bluffs. 189 

Hands containing too many 
cards. 51 






















































(;eneral index 


249 


PAGE 

Hands getting mixed. 52 

Hands shown in the call.... 53 

Historical. i 

Hoffman, Lt. W illiam.. .203, 205 

Holding up kickers. 133 

House Rules. 35 

How jack-pots are made_ 82 

How to play as age. 171 

How to play as dealer. 176 

How to play as first bettor... 177 
How to play other positions 178 

“Hoyle,” Anners’. 10 

“ Hoyle,” CowpERTH wait’s. . 9 

“Hoyle,” Dick & Fitz¬ 
gerald’s .I b 13 

“ Hoyle,” early editions. 9 

“ Hoyle,” Frere’s. 12 

“Hoyle,” Long’s. 9 

Ignorance of chances. 145 

Imperfect packs. 55 

Improvement in pairs. 216 

Improving against openers.. 119 

Incorrect drawing. 27 

Increasing value of the pool 125 
Inferring what others hold... 154 
Injudicious raising of antes.. 127 
Interrupting runs of luck.... 223 
Introduction of draw Poker.. 12 

Introduction of jack-pots- 13 

Invention of the jack-pot- 14 

Irregularities in hands. 22 

Jack-pot antes... 31 

Jack-pot laws. 30 

Jack-pots. 81 

Jack-pots after misdeal. 82 


P.AGE 


Jack-pots, first mention of... 13 

Jack-pots, how made. 82 

Jack-pots, passing for. 83 

Jack-pots, invention of. 14 

Jacks or better. 81 

Joker in the pack. 93 

Jollying the game along. 168 

Judgment necessary in bluff¬ 
ing. 186 

Keeping capital. 194 

Keeping odds in your favour 145 

Keeping others out. 123 

Keno. 146 

Kickers, holding out. 133 

Kilters, standing pat on.... 126 

Kinds of players. 100 

Kings, raising on. 176 

Kitty. 88 

Laying aside discards. 41 

Laying odds on single events 143 

Laws of Poker. 19 

Learning from better players 180 
Learning how others play.. 179 
Letting others bet up the 

hands. 159 

Liberal and close games, 100, 163 
Limit and ante, proportion.. 64 

Limit of the straddle. 66 

Limits. 20 

Limits, how regulated. 192 

Limits, progre-ssive. 89 

Limits, reasons for. 191 

Long’s “Hoyle”. 9 

Luck against skill. 225 

Luck and superstition.222 

Luck equalising it.self. 226 


























































250 


GENERAL INDEX 


PAGE 


Luck, rules for changing .... 223 

Luck, runs of. 196 

Lucky players. 224 

Making good. 68 

Making jack-pots. 30 

Mannerisms and talk. 166 

Man under the gun.66, 104 

Marks of the expert. 168 

Masking the hand. 140 

Maturity of the chances. 196 

Maxims for drawing. 137 

Meaning of luck. 222 

Memory, value of. 153 

.Mis-calling the draw. 54 

Misdealing. 21 

Alissing small pots. 103 

Alistigris.3, 93 

Money bet belongs to table.. 149 
Money lost before the draw, 

149, 165 

Monkey draws. 142 

Monkey flushes. 133 

Monte Carlo. 145 

Most money lost in antes.... 165 
Most money won in betting.. 165 
Most valuable hands difficult 
to get. 70 

Natural jacks. 82 

Necessity for self-control.... 166 
Neither calling nor raising... 158 
New Orleans introduced Poker 6 

N cw York Sun . 2 

No pair, calculating for. 205 

Not good enough to raise.... 158 
Number of any hand possible 206 
Number of cards does not 
affect odds. 220 


PAGE 


Number of hands ace high, 

etc. 208 

Numbers of players. 61 

Number of players does not 

affect odds. 217 

Number of possible hands.. 197 
Number of two-pair hands... 208 

Object of holding up kickers 134 

Object of raising antes. 124 

Object of splitting openers.. 42 

Object of the laws. 36 

Objections to bluffing. 187 

Objections to keeping discards 44 
Observation of the draw.... 149 
Odds against ace-high, etc... 208 

Odds against any hand. 206 

Odds against any two pairs.. 208 
Odds against certain hands .. 72 

Odds against extra hands_ 75 

Odds against improving. 209 

Odds against improving pairs 216 
Odds against jacks being 

opened . m 

Odds against matching a card 142 

Odds at Poker. 196 

Odds never vary. 220 

Old “Hoyles”. 9 

One pair as good as another 

against openers. 122 

One pair, calculating for.... 204 

Opener bets first. 86 

Openers against openers.... 115 
Openers compared to bobtails 42 

Openers in jack-pots. 81 

Openers, showing. 33 

Openers, splitting. 40 

Opening cheaply. 112 

Opening jack-pots_31, 81, no 
















































GENERAL INDEX 


PAGE 


Opening on bobtails. 42 

Opinions about jack-ix)ts_ 113 

Original hands. 65 

Origin of the word “Poker” 7 
Over-estimating drawn hands 113 


Passing for a jack. 83 

Passing with openers. in 

Paying too much to draw 

cards. 151 

Pays to draw against openers 123 

Peculiar hands. 74 

Penalties for irregularities... 58 

Percentages, importance of.. 146 
Percentages in throwing dice 147 

Persian origin of Poker. 2 

Peterson, T. P. 8 

Philpots’ calculations, 

203, 204, 205 

Picking up the cards .. 66 

Play more important, than 

position. 172 

Playing against impossibilities 146 

Playing against 1 he age. 176 

Playing all the time. 99 

Playing two pairs pat. 140 

Playing upon a system. 154 

Playing without a banker.... 62 

Pochenspiel. 3 

Poker a river game. 8 

Poker “ before the war”. 181 

Poker calculations. 195 

Poker hands. 71 

Pone. 65 

Popular fallacies. 216 

Position at the table. 63 

Position must be considered.. 103 

Position play. 171 

Poque.2, 3, 6 


251 

PAGE 


Post-and-pair. 2 

Primero. 2 

Principles of betting. 143 

Principles of bluffing. 183 

Probabilities expressed by frac¬ 
tions . 196 

Probability of being raised... 151 


Probability of filling bobtails. 214 
Probability of improving pairs 216 
Prejudices about probabilities 195 

Progressive jacks. 84 

Progressive limits. 89 

Proper rank of extra hands.. 76 

Proportion of ante to limits.. 64 

Protecting the blind. 174 

Protecting the hand. 55 


Rai.se, waiting for. 177 

Raising before one-card draw 128 

Raising on aces.124, 179 

Raising on kings. 167 

Raising on two pairs. 125 

Raising the ante.67. 124 

Raising the bluffer. 188 

Raising the opener. 112 

Raising too soon. 162 

Rank of the cards. 6r 

Rank of the counters. 61 

Rank of the hands. 72 

Reasons for limits. 191 

“Reformed Gambler,” The.. 9 

Regulating the limits. 192 

Result of drawing against 

openers.119, 121 

Results of limiting the bets.. 194 

Round-the-corners. 75 

Rules which are disputed.... 35 

Runs of luck.196, 223 


























































252 


genp:ral indI'X 


PAGE 


SCHENCK, R. C. 10 

Seeing. 63 

Selecting the best chance.... 138 

Self-control. 166 

Settling disputes. 34 

Seymour’s description of bluff t8i 

Short hands. 57 

Show-down Poker. 183 

Showing after bluffing. 182 

Showing discards. 43 

Showing entire hand.'... 48 

Showdng hands in a call. 53 

Showing openers.86, 87 

Showing openers only.33. 48 

Shy. 85 

Sight, calUng for. 92 

Sixty-card packs. 61 

Skill against luck. 225 

Skifjs. 74 

Small limit kills bluffing. 182 

Small limit not a cheap game 191 
Small pots, imixirtance of ... 185 

.Sorting the hand, bad. 167 

Spirit of the Times .13, 203 

Splitting openers.33, 40, 86 

Scjueezer marks on cards.... 168 
Standing by weak hands .... 105 

Standing pat. 69 

Standing pat on kilters. 126 

Steamer Smelter . 9 

Story, T. \V. 12 

Straddler claiming the age... 53 

Straddling. 65 

Straight flushes, calculating 

for. 199 

Straight Hushes first played.. 13 

Straight Poker. 93 

Straights, calculating for . .. 201 


PAGE 

Straights first played.5. 12 

Straights, value determined.. 15 

Stud Poker. 95 

Superstition. 222 

Sure-thing players. 99 

System in playing. 154 


Table of average improvement 136 
Table of improvement in pairs 216 

Table of no-pair hands.208 

Table of Poker hands. 206 

Table of two-pair hands. 208 

Table stakes. 91 

Table slakes, bluffing at. 183 

Tactics vary according to po¬ 
sition . 171 

Talking to advantage. 168 

Technical terms. 228 

Temptation to .straddle. 104 

Three of a kind, calculating . 202 
Throwing up hands too soon 49, 50 

Throwing dice. 147 

Ties in hands of same class.. 77 

Tigers. 74 

Time to play hands. 99 

Tossing coins. 224 

Twenty-card Poker. 9 

Two pairs beat threes, with 

a joker .. 93 

Two pairs, calculating for... 203 
Two pairs, discarding the 

smaller. 130 

Two pairs, playing pat. 140 

Two pairs, varieties of. 207 

Under the gun.66, 104, 178 

Unlucky player squit. 227 

Use of knowing odds. 102 





























































GENERAL INDEX 


253 


PAGE 


Value of hands compared to 

others. 156 

\'alue of memory. 153 

Value of the counters. 62 

Varieties of Poker. 90 

Varying tactics according to 
position. J 71 

Waiting for a raise. 177 

Waiting for good cards. 103 

Waiting for hands. 100 

Waiting to see openers. 49 

Watching raises before the 
draw. 154 


PAGE 


Watching the draw. 153 

Watching two-card draws_ 154 

Weakness of protecting blind 174 

Whangdoodles. 82 

What it may cost to drasv ... 109 

When first bettor is in. 106 

^^'hisky Poker. 96 

Who is*shy?. 85 

Widows. 96 

Yarborocgh. 144 

ZiEBER, G. B. 8 






























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